I feel like "useful" and "valued" are very poor terms for the situations described in the article. I think a much better explanation is that just because you may excel in one role (and be recognized as such) does not necessarily mean you'll excel in another role. And heck, I think it's important to recognize these qualities and limitations in yourself. Calling this being "useful" or "valued" puts an emotional/moral spin on this that is unwarranted in my opinion.
If anything, in a business relationship, I think it's important to recognize that nearly everyone is just "useful". It may be the case that people think you'll be more useful in an expanded role, and thus will give you advancement opportunities. But even then, the business environment may change, and your skills may not longer be highly prioritized. Just look at lots of the recent tech layoffs that have snared well-respected, senior technologists. Apparently they were "valued", until they weren't.
eitally 1 days ago [-]
I actually don't agree, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise. I posit that there's an employer expectation that every employee will be "useful", but utility is a fungible characteristic and the majority of managers and employers treat job descriptions of standardized roles just like that. Employees in those roles are susceptible to both replacement and career advancement, depending how "useful" they are, and how the company is doing.
That's an entirely different set of metrics than determining "value". Being valuable means being a trusted strategic voice to some portion of the leadership, and being recognized for contributions that go beyond (horizontally or diagonally) the employee's job description. In many cases, this value = trust relationship is evidenced by how frequently senior managers bring former employees with them when joining new firms, or how small & tight knit the community is for specialty roles/functions.
Lots of fresh grads and junior staff focus 99% on being useful, but career advancement beyond the first one or two promotions depends MUCH more on being valued.
mjr00 1 days ago [-]
> Lots of fresh grads and junior staff focus 99% on being useful, but career advancement beyond the first one or two promotions depends MUCH more on being valued.
Yeah. I've seen a lot of ICs get stuck at the "senior developer" level rather than progressing to team lead, staff/principal eng, etc because they were too focused on being useful, by cranking through Jira tickets and features, rather than thinking strategic and higher level. This is a totally fine career choice, but there's only so far that "coding better and faster" can take you.
The counterintuitive part is increasing your valuableness often reduces your usefulness. As a mundane example, in early stage startups there may be one engineer who handles production deployments, schema migrations, and on-call duties. This is extremely useful! For this engineer to increase their value, however, they'll want to automate production deployments, teach others how to run schema migrations, and set up on-call alerting and schedules. By doing this, they become less useful, since others can now do their work, but more valuable, since they've been able to delegate responsibilities.
hn_throwaway_99 1 days ago [-]
As another commenter mentioned, what you are describing is simply strategic vs tactical thinking, and IMO those are much more accurate, standardized, and less judgmental terms for the situation than "useful" vs "valued".
3acctforcom 1 days ago [-]
Perception is reality. In my experience, if you're a "useful" employee to your management you are boxed into tactical. If you're "valued" then you are invited into strategic decision making.
It really doesn't matter how much strategic thinking you do if nobody cares.
mjr00 1 days ago [-]
Yeah the article using "useful" and "valuable" isn't ideal, but I was sticking with those terms for discussion. I agree it's largely about strategic vs tactical thinking.
kmoser 1 days ago [-]
I think you're twisting the original article's meaning of "useful" and "valuable." Useful means you are able to contribute meaningfully. Valuable means you are perceived as being able to provide value to the company (in this case by being useful), and are treated accordingly.
An engineer who does their job so well that they reduce everyone's workload by automating things and showing others how to do some of their tasks doesn't become less useful; in fact just the opposite, since presumably they will continue to need to do this as the landscape changes and not everybody will have their advanced knowledge of how to efficiently organize things at a high level.
mjr00 1 days ago [-]
I didn't interpret the article that way.
> Being useful means that you are good at getting things done in a specific area, so that people above you can delegate that completely. You are reliable, efficient, maybe even indispensable in the short term. But you are seen primarily as a gap-filler, someone who delivers on tasks that have to be done but are not necessarily a core component of the company strategy.
I take this to mean "usefulness" is: you have a tactical role in the company, where you are able to perform necessary tasks. If you can perform them with little supervision, you are very useful.
However, "value" is eliminating those gaps entirely. Instead of being the on-call person who fixes every issue, which is undeniably useful, you fix the root causes so those issues don't happen. This does make you less useful, by definition, because fewer on-call issues means there's fewer reasons to keep you around. But assuming you also do an ok job of communicating what you've done, and your bosses aren't totally clueless, people will recognize this as valuable. The fact that you were able to identify a systemic issue and address it is what makes you valuable, and it will get you invited into broader technically strategic discussions. In theory, at least.
Again these are just my interpretation of useful vs valuable as far as the article's definition. I don't agree with the terms in a broader sense.
BobbyTables2 22 hours ago [-]
Yet, while these more valuable team players that think strategically may be inherently more “valuable”, they aren’t necessarily more “valued” either.
Who I have I seen that is more valued? H1B hires (QA > SW developer) and middle management. Even break room legal notices prove the former.
johnnyanmac 23 hours ago [-]
I feel stuck because my industry keeps laying me off. I feel useful, but it's clear that the powers that be don't value any of the studio, let alone a mere 5-10 year nameless fledgling.
Swizec 1 days ago [-]
> Lots of fresh grads and junior staff focus 99% on being useful, but career advancement beyond the first one or two promotions depends MUCH more on being valued.
“People don’t remember who went to grab drinks on a Tuesday, but they’ll remember who helped them close a million dollar deal and get a huge bonus”
Give your coworkers superpowers and opportunities will flow.
asielen 1 days ago [-]
"People don’t remember who went to grab drinks on a Tuesday, but they’ll remember who helped them close a million dollar deal and get a huge bonus”
Outside of sales and senior leadership I don't agree with this statement. Maybe it is just because I've reached a time in my life where I could care less about the hustle and just want a job where it can solve interesting problems for no more than 8 hours a day. And then get home to my family.
For ladder climbers sure, but at some point relationships are more important than dollars. (As long as you have a enough to live of course).
And if you are struggling to make ends meet and you get a pat on a back for deal support, that feels more exploitive than anything else. Yay, I helped make someone else money.
Being a highly productive, easy to work with, solution oriented coworker is a super power in it's own right.
Swizec 1 days ago [-]
> but at some point relationships are more important than dollars
Sure. Who do you have a better relationship with: That engineer who drops everything they're doing to come help you with a gnarly bug when asked, or the dude who's always at happy hour but nowhere to be seen when you need something?
johnnyanmac 23 hours ago [-]
That can be the same person in a few of my cases. The outgoing ones tend to also be outgoing with helping others.
On the other end, there can be helpful but quiet people who makes me feel like I invaded their space when I ask a question.
24 hours ago [-]
fragmede 1 days ago [-]
but who are you gonna go to first when there's a gnarly bug? the guy you had drinks with last night, or anybody else?
fragmede 1 days ago [-]
I think the point is going for drinks gets you a pat on the back at bonus time but deal support gets you a more sizable bump.
stuartjohnson12 1 days ago [-]
I think both of these things can be true at the same time - the issue with a lot of utility-based value is that it often comes in the form of unsustainable heroism. My capacity to feed back interesting thoughts about product and strategy in domains I'm familiar with is probably greater than your capacity or desire to consume them, but my capacity to do various forms of high-precision grunt work (set up configurations for clients, misc. project work, ship XYZ feature into the product) is much easier to consume and ultimately overload.
Closing that million dollar deal as a sprint might be memorable, but being the go-to configurator for Azure cloud services isn't, and the difference between heroic level systems management and mediocre button clicker requires hard squinting if you're non-technical. Hell, I'm technical and would struggle to tell the difference just because IT isn't usually my domain.
And if the person you're working with has no appreciation of what an average performance is, any mistake will be seen as a defect even if what you're doing is otherwise heroic.
johnnyanmac 23 hours ago [-]
Businesses may remember that. I'm not sure if people will. That million dollar deal probably isn't making you money directly in this time and age. At best it keeps you from being laid off.
Meanwhile, I still do remeber the coworkers I viewed as helpful, or even just generous and friendly.
yibg 1 days ago [-]
It seems the difference is just the degree of usefulness / value. Rather than being different terms, I think they're just different spots on the spectrum. What's the difference between someone being "useful" vs "valuable", one is 6/10 the other is 8+/10 (made up numbers).
A sales person that consistently hits quota is useful. A rainmaker that keeps bringing in million dollar deals is valuable.
IggleSniggle 1 days ago [-]
An Ops contributor who saves the company millions in operating costs, however, might be extremely valuable, but may or may not be valued.
rowanG077 1 days ago [-]
Definitely, it's up to the contributor to also demonstrate their value if it's overlooked for whatever reason. Demonstration of value is almost never the same thing as value.
drdec 1 days ago [-]
I think you have missed the subtle difference between "valuable" (which you introduced) and "valued" (which is the subject of the article)
hn_throwaway_99 1 days ago [-]
I understand with what you're saying, and I agree for the most part. I just think describing this as "value" vs. "usefulness" is the wrong framing and unhelpful, and I can think of specific examples from my past that show this.
First, what you are describing in this comment sounds very much to me like following the adage "be loyal to people, not companies", and to that I totally agree. It's definitely critical in your career to build trust and relationships with folks you work with, and be dependable.
But for an example of why I think this "useful" vs. "valued" framing is wrong, I can think of a colleague at a previous company who I think was great at her role - she was a relatively junior (i.e. a couple years of experience) front end developer. She was responsive, implemented features well, and always demoed her work well and was extremely prepared. People also loved working with her - she was friendly, had very little ego, and had an almost disarming way of interacting with folks that would instantly defuse tensions on her team. I would work with her again in a heartbeat, and she was a great addition to her team.
At the same time, after working with her a while it became clear that her developer skills were limited. She was a great taskmaster, but the didn't have a great "systems-wide" way of thinking. She would implement features as requested, but when she would give demos I remember there were a bunch of times that there were semi-obvious questions ("Wait, how would the user get to screen A if they click button B first?") that she didn't bring up beforehand and did't consider in her implementations. I could trust her to implement individual components and screens, but I couldn't really say "Here's a description of the user problem, and the general direction we want to go in - how would you solve this?"
So if you asked me, I would say this person was a very valued person on her team. In her role, I think she was great. But I also don't think I'd expect her to perform well if she was asked to go in more "strategic and ambitious directions", as taken from the article.
strken 1 days ago [-]
Sometimes you're an investment, sometimes you're insurance, and other times you're a luxury or even an impulse buy.
I think this is a better framing because it explains some behaviours that are otherwise baffling: if I'm hurting for cash, I'm going to stop adding to my savings before I cancel all my insurance, even if the expected rate of return is higher.
hn_throwaway_99 1 days ago [-]
I really like this comment and I think your framing is the correct way to think about it.
For example, when I look through the pattern of folks in my LinkedIn network who have been hit hard by layoffs, it's clear to me that a lot of roles were "luxuries" or "impulse buys" during the ZIRP era, and so many of those roles have vanished over the past 2 years or so.
TimTheTinker 1 days ago [-]
Often, especially in large businesses, which of these categories you fall into (investment, insurance, luxury/impulse buy) is more a function of which of these buckets your business unit is in than you as an individual.
I've always tried to avoid working for cost centers, where the business's goal is to reduce cost as much as possible while continuing to provide the necessary utility (like on-premise IT). Cost centers are most prone to offshoring and automation; and this is where the "AI threat" is most likely to materialize.
But if your business unit is viewed as an investment center (like an R&D center), you're part of a strategic asset and you're also (by proxy) viewed as an investment. Luxury and impulse buys also happen here a lot more often.
firesteelrain 1 days ago [-]
"Just look at lots of the recent tech layoffs that have snared well-respected, senior technologists. Apparently they were "valued", until they weren't"
You are actually agreeing with the author here. Rephrase that to "Apparently they were useful, until they weren't"
They weren't valued.
I think the author is apt in their observation.
osigurdson 1 days ago [-]
I think the author is over indexing on the value that the company brings to its customers and the value that an employee beings to the company - as if there is just a kind of lossless value roll up going on here. In reality, there are many humans in the mix - various gatekeepers with all kinds of objective functions that are not necessarily aligned with the overall stated objective of the company. The better a company is, the more aligned it will be, but still good to keep in mind the gatekeeper layers in an org and what their actual objective functions are.
mathgeek 1 days ago [-]
I think it's worth differentiating between value (i.e. having value) and valued (i.e. the people who control your future at a company seeing value in your work, whether or not it reflects reality).
entropicdrifter 1 days ago [-]
Isn't that what the original author is doing by using "useful" to mean "adds value" vs "valued" which means what you're saying it means in this context?
xp84 1 days ago [-]
> layoffs that have snared well-respected, senior technologists. Apparently they were "valued", until they weren't"
See, I think it's more honest to say that 99% of employees are not valued at all, in that "the company" or top management actually care about what you think because you think it. People are kept around as long as the person 1-2 levels above them in management believe they have a positive short-term ROI, and everyone will be unceremoniously let go nearly instantly the moment they think they don't need you, whether you have just not distinguished yourself, or just basically at random when revenue misses dictate general cutbacks.
The author of the piece seems to place great personal significance specifically on his ideas mattering to the execs, but I think that may not be such an important thing to every personality type. I do mildly like being part of some 'strategic' conversations, but it's honestly more because I don't want the tech team to be blindsided by an impossible product requirement, and because I feel like I am good at identifying low-hanging fruit. But in terms of whether the company pursues one strategy or another at the highest level, that is hard, and you have to feel pretty bad when you make a bad bet. I don't think I need that at all to be happy.
hn_throwaway_99 1 days ago [-]
I'll clarify, because, at least in my read of it, I am saying something very different than the author.
I was using "valued" in scare quotes that sentence you quoted - yes, I agree, the literal meaning of what I was saying is that they were useful until they weren't.
But, thus, I think it's important to understand that, at least from a business perspective, they were never "valued", and so I don't think it's helpful to think of things in those terms - again, I think that term implies a, well, value judgement that is inappropriate in the context.
By analogy, what I'm trying to say is similar to the difference between using the words "team" and "family" in a business context. I think using team is fine - teams want to win, and they cut people all the time if they don't have the right skills to help them win. Using the word "family" is simply bullshit, and it's just manipulation by business owners to try to get more work out of employees.
So my advice is to not ever think of yourself as "valued" in business. Remember that you are always just useful depending on the context of your role, your skills, and the current business environment.
phkahler 1 days ago [-]
There's a distinction the author was making. If we ignore the words used "useful" and "valuable", can you see the distinction in the way a company may view people? I'm not sure you even think beyond "useful" and "even more useful". I'm not sure you see it as more than a difference in degree, when the author is claiming it's a difference in kind.
SAI_Peregrinus 1 days ago [-]
"Valued" != "valuable". "Valued" is emotional, "valuable" is transactional, as is "useful".
robertlagrant 1 days ago [-]
I think it could be the opposite: they were valued, but not useful.
baxtr 1 days ago [-]
I think there is a difference though. I have seen people who are useful but not perceived as being valuable.
Key differentiator in all these cases was bad or missing communication.
Do good stuff and make sure enough people notice. If you don’t self-market yourself, others who are less useful to the company for sure will.
potato3732842 1 days ago [-]
You're not nearly jaded about about the modern media landscape. A boring and "correct" (whatever that means in context) writing about a subject like this will never make it to the top of a comment based platform because it needs to be wrong or at least loosely worded enough the low denominator reader can engage with it in the form of commentary, further people can bicker with them, etc, etc. It's basically the modern version of a playwright 500yr ago designing a play such that the audience of illiterate peasants can participate, only it's high brow instead of for the masses.
munificent 1 days ago [-]
The choice of words here also didn't resonate with me.
I think the distinction the author is really getting at is whether the business views you as fungible.
My couch is useful and provides value. It would be hard to relax in my living room without it. But if I had to pack up and move across the country, I'd probably ditch the couch and buy a new one when I got there. It's useful and valuable, but also replaceable.
I don't play it much these days, so my bass guitar arguably isn't very useful or valuable. But I've had it 20 years and have a lot of important memories attached to it. If I have to move, I'm not selling it and buying a new one.
Maybe another way to state it is whether you have more value to the company than your replacement cost.
1 days ago [-]
m463 20 hours ago [-]
I remember people I've worked with over the years that have resigned because they were never going to get onto another project and grow while they were so "useful" on the current project.
Sort of like holding people who were successful working on the OS from a decade ago, and not letting them work on the current OS.
throwaway201606 1 days ago [-]
The piece is good but I think the primary segmentation is not 'useful' vs 'valued', it is strategic vs. tactical.
The author actually realizes this but did not nail this idea to the church door as part of his manifesto.
>Being valued, on the other hand, means that you are brought into
>more conversations, not just to execute, but to help shape the
> direction. This comes with opportunities to grow and contribute
> in ways that are meaningful to you and the business.
The first part is not being 'valued'; this is being a 'useful strategically'.
The second part - "opportunities to grow and contribute in ways that are meaningful to you and the business." - that is being 'valued strategically'
> Being useful means that you are good at getting things done in a
> specific area, so that people above you can delegate that
> completely. You are reliable, efficient, maybe even
> indispensable in the short term. But you are seen primarily as a gap-filler,
> someone who delivers on tasks that have to be done but are not
> necessarily a core component of the company strategy. “Take care
> of that and don’t screw up” is your mission, and the fewer
> headaches you create for your leadership chain, the bigger the rewards.
The first is not being 'useful'; this is being a 'useful tactically'.
The second part, "Take care of that and don’t screw up” is your mission, and the fewer headaches you create for your leadership chain, the bigger the rewards." is being 'valued tactically'.
So, the theory is every member of staff is dropped BOTH a 'useful' and 'valued' bucket for tactical work and for strategic work.
ie:
- one can be useful or not useful for strategic or tactical work or both
- one can be valued or not valued for strategic or tactical work or both
A couple of counterpoints:
1. You can,unfortunately, be useful strategically and not be valued. Think about the hachet man every leader of a large organization has - the guy who does the layoffs. That slot is useful strategically but can be filled by almost anyone - it is not valued by the org.
2. You can, fortunately, be useful tactically, useless strategically, and be be very very valued in an organization. Best examples of this are folks who are very very good at running operations. Think about a good truck dispatcher, or a 911 operator or an air traffic controller. 90% of their job is effective tactical execution - dealing with this emerging situation right now effectively and efficiently. That is highly valuable to organizations.
Also note that every org needs strategy people and tactical people for long and short term.
One is not better than the other. They are just different.
And there are lots of very highly paid tactical roles, sometimes better paid, that are more challenging and more interesting than any strategy role.
These tend to be "do this or fix this thing right now efficiently and effectively" jobs.
For example, almost any practicing medial role is a tactical one - ER doctor (fix this sick person right now) or controllers for real time stuff - concert and live TV producers (make this thing look good right now), air traffic controllers (keep these planes safe right now) etc etc.
So, net net, pick you spot - tactical vs strategic or both, useful vs. valuable or both - get good at it and then may the odds always be in your favor.
kordlessagain 1 days ago [-]
It is the dumbest thing ever for a company to evaluate someone as not useful based on their perceived skill set. What makes someone not useful is their tendency to show up to get shit done or not, nothing else.
cyanydeez 2 days ago [-]
another way to look at it is: just because you're excellent in one role, does not mean there's an upgrade path at any given business to improve salary+expectations.
Some businesses structure this intentionally, to avoid the upward progression of salaries, and other businesses just arnt churning through projects and clients quick enough to expand to fit the upward momentum of their talent.
Recognizing the real constraints on your value to a business model is important to not get stuck in the backwash of business value.
varispeed 1 days ago [-]
In a corporation, everyone is “useful” - that’s the bare minimum for staying on payroll. Even those doing meaningless work are sometimes kept just so competitors can’t poach them. Big tech overhires deliberately, parking talent in BS roles to block rivals.
The notion of being “useful” is ironically useless. The only real measure is your pay: if the company pays you well, they consider you important. If you think you’re useful but your compensation doesn’t reflect that, you’re being exploited - and all that talk of “belonging” and “usefulness” is just corporate mind games to keep you emotionally captive.
dfxm12 1 days ago [-]
I agree that I think "value" might be the wrong term in the essay. I think there is an emotional/moral spin on "value" though. Too many workers are overworked and underpaid. If someone is undervalued, the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly. The article touches on this, but doesn't make the connection.
Beyond that, in my experience, when trying to get a bigger role, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Some managers are not useful or just as overworked as we are, so they can't take the step back and properly evaluate who is ready for more responsibility. We have to advocate for ourselves.
9rx 1 days ago [-]
> Too many workers are overworked and underpaid.
The inherit friction means that some workers will sometimes be overworked and/or underpaid, but workers do not remain in overworked/underpaid situations for long. Given the real-world constraints, the exact right number of people are in that situation, not "too many".
> the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly.
If the workers show up, you know you are paying them properly. That's not the issue here.
Trouble is, at some point you run out of things to buy. Those who continue to seek more money beyond that do so because they are able to leverage it to increase their social value. — But, in the case of the person in article, they were still failing to establish social value even with more money than they knew what to do with. Even more money than that wouldn't have helped them. They needed to find a new situation that was able to allow them to find the social value they were after.
robertlagrant 1 days ago [-]
> Too many workers are overworked and underpaid. If someone is undervalued, the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly
I think this is very hard to measure, particularly from our outside perspective. I understand it may be more of a worldview axiom than a fact, and will get a chorus of nods in a group conversation, but I think it should be tested more like a fact than an axiom.
mboto 2 days ago [-]
What is also useful to keep in mind is the tendency to recreate your primary family life in the workplace. So if you had critical controlling parents who never valued you and everything you ever did was worthless, then you'll tend to select for those places and it is often done outside of awareness.
Was your primary family spent being valued and appreciated? Then you'll select for that and when people start to not value you, you'll intervene earlier to correct for it and you'll have the skills to do that.
Did your parents respect your boundaries growing up? Were you able to erect strong boundaries and have people listen to you when they over stepped, or were you constantly put down and your wishes ignored? A lack of skills in erecting proper boundaries and then maintaining them by being in the goldilocks zone of not too soft and too hard can lead to issues in the workplace and personal life.
First step is bringing this in to awareness so you can look back with hindsight, next step (the hardest) is mid-sight, you know you are doing or not the doing the thing you need to do but can't do it or don't know how. There there is foresight, hey I normally do this thing that's not good for me here, I had better do the thing I need to do to keep this situation positive.
Keep this mantra in mind:
You are the only in charge of you and your emotions, no one makes you do anything, and you will protect yourself.
Awareness + skills = ability. Psychotherapy (not counselling) is what you need to look out for. Combine that with Transactional Analysis and it makes you very very effective.
agumonkey 2 days ago [-]
The psychological basis is most probably one of the main forces.. your job is your survival, just like your parents were. Very often your refuse to challenge limit or keep boundaries because of the same fear of being ousted and out of options.
It's both very useful to get out of this pit, and also sad.. because our lives are not supposed to be fully transactional. We prefer to have a group with who we share more than notarial duties.
isoprophlex 1 days ago [-]
I'll add to the general consensus here that this is an extremely valuable comment. At least for me it closely resonates with things I am only now discovering, at an age close to 40; the (in)ability to set and guard boundaries is super dependent upon early life and upbringing.
Thanks for articulating this so clearly.
77pt77 1 days ago [-]
Setting boundaries is only a thing if you're able to implement them, just like in geopolitics.
If you lack the power to implement them they mean nothing.
Children can try and set the boundaries they want, but parents, family and society in general can just laugh and ignore them.
munificent 1 days ago [-]
This is true, but it's worth taking a step up a meta level.
People who don't believe they deserve to have their boundaries respected also don't tend to do things that will garner them the power that enables them to do so.
The amount of power we have is not at all fixed. It can be changed by our choices and is meaningful mostly relative to the power of the people around us, and we also have a lot of choice around who those people are.
In short, people who want their boundaries respected tend to work to avoid getting into situations where they aren't able to enforce them.
robocat 1 days ago [-]
Setting boundaries implies conflict management. Most people have some power, but many fear to use their power because it risks conflict.
Navigating conflict is hard.
Many people are conflict avoiders, and they struggle to set boundaries. People pleasers or panderers in particular often cost themselves a lot to avoid conflict.
kevinventullo 1 days ago [-]
You do need a certain degree of leverage. I think especially in the tech sector, people often do not realize how much leverage they have, and how a little pushback can go a long way. It is sometimes worth asking and testing: “Are they really going to fire me for this?”
FeteCommuniste 1 days ago [-]
A lot of us have jobs where the answer to that question is often "I don't know."
larrled 1 days ago [-]
Good advice. Psychological transference is a closely related term. But it’s easy to take that framework too far and eventually get to where you blame things like schizophrenia or ptsd on the mothers. People who grew up in shitty families probably have plenty of insight already. A lot of human behavior is determined rather than the result of free will. If you had a bad mom, it may be better to just lower expectations than try to “fix”yourself and become the CEO. And taking drugs like ssri or adderal helps many in their careers where psychotherapy might not. Freud loved cocaine.
ricardobayes 1 days ago [-]
Incredible comment, thank you. I can't believe I read this for free. This is probably years of distilled behavior science applied to a workplace-specific environment.
joshmlewis 1 days ago [-]
It's called attachment theory and does show up in more than just romantic relationships.
deadbabe 1 days ago [-]
Keep in mind it’s not really accurate.
anton-c 1 days ago [-]
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I appreciate you posting that. I wonder if that's why I found myself at certain workplaces.
jaredklewis 1 days ago [-]
This is interesting and I've also seen this sort of psychoanalysis applied to relationships, but I'm skeptical and don't understand the evidence for these sorts of analyses.
What convinced you? Any particularly compelling resources re: the evidence and methodology for these theories?
mawadev 1 days ago [-]
Thank you for your comment. Are there any books on this? I wish I could adapt this frame of mind :(
paulcole 23 hours ago [-]
> What is also useful to keep in mind is the tendency to recreate your primary family life in the workplace
Is this research based or one of the things you believe to be true?
BonoboIO 1 days ago [-]
Interesting, never thought of that that we even recreate family in our workplaces.
My therapist said one sentence to me that stuck „… you are marrying your parents“
Like you seek a partner that has similarities to your mother or father. I see that very often with friends.
im3w1l 2 days ago [-]
This is interesting. I could imagine that it's not exactly that you are selecting for the same dysfunction. Maybe it's rather that you don't know what functional looks like, and therefore can't as easily find a place that fits or steer your current place in the right dirrection?
47282847 2 days ago [-]
Our organism’s primary goal is survival. Unknown territory will feel unsafe and thus stressful, up to the point of unreal, even if on a rational level it may actually be safer. It takes courage to face and calm those fears without consciously or unconsciously returning to known survival strategies - and meta cognition skills to sufficiently distance yourself from those past emotional memories. After all, they allowed you to survive.
schmookeeg 1 days ago [-]
I have traded within a quite tight comp band for my entire 30 year tech career. I am useful in general. I have been valued by being offered "promotions" and "strategic instead of tactical" positions, but I always chafe.
I enjoy the work. I enjoy solving specific problems in tech.
I do not enjoy the "business" of tech and have no interest in any of it.
I definitely have inadequate drive to grow a business and make others wealthy, even if I get a few crumbs.
For me, contracting is the perfect match. I don't need to get involved in your politics, I just need to eat jira tickets. Realiably and well. When there are none to eat, I can go do my own things.
I would need to care a LOT more about the business and dollars to excel at it, and lately I lean in the opposite direction. I see nothing wrong with simply being comfortable and useful. We have it good that we can make this choice.
$0.02 :)
kbenson 1 days ago [-]
If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend reading The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”. It's not that it maps to reality perfectly, but it's an interesting lens through which to look at work and your relation to it. It helped me soften my view on some of my coworkers by understanding their motivations better, and also helped me to accept a point of view much more similar to yours about the work I do. Also, if you're a fan of The Office, it's fun to revisit it and examine it in a new way.
That sounds fascinating, and I worry it will be "humor that is way more documentary than I am at all comfortable with", like, say, Office Space or Idiocracy. :)
Great timing, though, I've been in need of a new read and I'm a Ricky Gervais fan. Thanks!
strangattractor 1 days ago [-]
Did my own stint as a contractor and it was one of the best jobs I ever had. My clients would often ask for something - I would give them my opinion on how it should be done and alternatives that may be cheaper and/or better. They would then choose not to do that and pay me all those extra hours that their poor choice resulted in.
Contrast this to working for an organization. Again I offer my opinion on how it might be done and alternatives that may be cheaper and/or better which results in the same poor choices. Except now I'm stuck supporting that turd of a decision with my own personal unpaid exempt status overtime.
No need to feel apologetic about being smart.
1 days ago [-]
Tokumei-no-hito 1 days ago [-]
did you stop contracting? what brought you back to the FTE side?
strangattractor 8 hours ago [-]
2008 was devastating contracting wise. Starting working for non-profits and have found it rewarding but suffers from similar problems as FTE.
On the plus side I spent a lot of time raising my son in his formative years - time for which I'm thankful. If I had stayed working at start-ups I would have missed that which I would have truly regretted.
Also the start-ups in SV became obsessed with Social Media which IMO is a total waste of electrons so I lost interest.
mancerayder 1 days ago [-]
The relationship between a contractor and a business is more honest: exchange labor time for cash.
Between an employee and employer, enter ideology: I do this because I love it/love helping clients/ working communally to improve the business. Or competition: my bonus is 50 percent of my salary and we're stack-ranked. Or fear: oh my god, I got only Meets Expectations in my review. Will my pay be flat?
And contractors get to not have constant meetings.
jimmydddd 1 days ago [-]
I had one job as a contractor where I got hired as a temp. After 6 months they wanted me to join as an employee, but I turned it down because it would have meant travel. They kept re-upping me for 6-month intervals, and it was a good feeling to know that they truly wanted me there. Also, I didn't get a year end review, so I just got to keep working while the other engineers got called in one at a time and then came out pissed off about their lower than expected raise. :-)
MichaelZuo 1 days ago [-]
To be fair to employers… even high performers need comforting lies some of the time.
(and middling performers a lot more)
I don’t think anyone (excluding the literally deranged) spends their day trying to maximize the number of lies directed at employees.
chairmansteve 1 days ago [-]
And also to be fair to employers. A decent amount of employees are not really "doers". Perhaps they contribute in other ways.
schmookeeg 1 days ago [-]
Sadly my experience has been that "Perhaps" there is doing more work than it can bear :)
PantaloonFlames 1 days ago [-]
I’m curious / what other ways do people contribute ? This is obviously a blind spot for me.
Like, contributing a sense of fun? Being cheerful?
jfil 10 hours ago [-]
I worked with a junior team member who constantly moved around departments chatting with people. From one angle, this looked unproductive. From another angle, they kept everyone apprised of what projects other are working on /major developments in completely different departments - this had wide ranging benefits.
Gud 20 hours ago [-]
They move the paper from point A to point B.
pydry 1 days ago [-]
Which comforting lies do you believe high performers need exactly?
ilteris 1 days ago [-]
Yeah tried that in office environment thinking it could work. Got slapped with a "fair" rating last minute. They want you to become one on their side or you are a risk for them.
jmyeet 1 days ago [-]
I've thought about this issue a lot. What's become clear to me later in life is that I have ADHD and probably autism. This has not only hindered social relationships, it's lethal to your career to.
Why? Because a bit of autism tends to make you good at your job but allistic people can always seemingly tell you're "off", no matter how well you (try and) mask.
And ultimately career progression is a social game. It's not about being good at your job. It's about whether people like you. Sure there are some outliers who get far on technical ability but they succeed in spite of this not because of it.
So when you say you don't enjoy the "business" of tech, it means you've reached your ceiling where it requires influencing other people as direct reports, as a tech leader or both.
If you're in this boat, and a lot of tech people are IME, then my advice is to make your bag while you can because you will be the first to be discarded and you will suffer at the dark, ugly side of tech, which is ageism.
Avoiding ageism is largely a social exercise. If the leadership at your company likes you, they'll keep you. If they don't, they won't. You'll find yourself randomly picked on a round of layoffs sooner or later.
schmookeeg 1 days ago [-]
Thanks. I already retired once at 39 with this exact view in mind. I'm frankly amazed I'm still overemployed at 48. But yes, I've been super bearish on the remaining chapters in my career. I've hedged by paying off a (argh, low-interest) mortgage, stacking the bank, and I have a very well developed and near-tech-money side hustle that is ageism resistant.
I keep waiting for this shoe to drop. It hasn't yet. Now the pendulum has swung far enough that I want to preserve my time more than I want to stack more bricks. Amusingly, it's a source of tension with my wife who plans to work for another 15 years and will not be excited to see me out playing without her. (her people live into 100 on the regular. My people die in their 40s and 50s with alarming frequency -- our horizon perspectives are very different :D )
All good problems. If I lose all my tech jobs tomorrow, I will be grateful for the run and not be going hungry. I half expect I'd be relieved.
hiatus 1 days ago [-]
An employee is just a contractor with one client.
yieldcrv 1 days ago [-]
that's pragmatic, I've launched and exited two things, and I can't bring myself to do it again to solidify my financial circumstances, so I stay employed instead and exclusively
its interesting how there are so many ways to be productive and compensated in this industry doing the same kind of work, but each gatekeeper is so strongly opinionated
like there is this perception that even just a 10 year developer is supposed to be this super soldier doing continual growth - more than just keeping up with frameworks but doing all these advanced other things - as opposed to simply doing the same job for 10 years. I like how the industry has matured for people with less years of experience to be compensated so highly, so I just keep truncating my resume to being at 8-10 years of experience, and plan on doing that forever.
bravesoul2 2 days ago [-]
I have always been useful not valued, worked at 8 or more places. Only people who value me are family. Businesses don't.
You find out pretty quick: suddenly on PIP, or get bullied thereafter because you phrased something slightly off in a Jira comment. If I can get paid and treated OK, I see that as good.
Don't put stock in business relationships. Try to have good ones but put stock in ... assets, family, health, etc.
Now I have seen valued people but they are rare. And if push come to shove I'm sure that bond could break.
itsoktocry 1 days ago [-]
>Don't put stock in business relationships.
If this is your mentality, is it any wonder you aren't valued?
People post things like this and I'm not sure they have any emotional intelligence whatsoever. Sure, your work/job doesn't have to be your entire life. But what about a little pride in what you're doing? Working with smart people towards a goal to do something useful?
If your mentality is "just show up for work, do what they ask and go home" then it should be no surprise you're at the top of the list to get laid off. I wouldn't want to work with a person who "puts no stock in business relationships".
munchler 1 days ago [-]
> If your mentality is "just show up for work, do what they ask and go home" then it should be no surprise you're at the top of the list to get laid off.
Conversely, if you think that devoting yourself to work will put you at the bottom of the list to get laid off, you are in for a big surprise eventually.
geodel 1 days ago [-]
Huh, eventually everyone living is gonna die.
But more likely people who do bare minimum at work and always wait for someone else to ask else they just leave for home are first one to go. And it is happening to "minimal interest in work" folks in my team as I type this.
It is not even about having them do work beyond normal hours. But just checking in normal hours if something need be done while they have spare cycle.
I guess it is all fine, employee made their choice and management theirs.
munificent 1 days ago [-]
Consider that your point and the parent are opposite ends of a continuum and that healthy relationships lie somewhere in the middle.
Any transaction becomes increasingly zero-sum as you get to either end of the value proposition difference between the two parties. The non-zero area is in the middle.
bravesoul2 1 days ago [-]
You made some assumptions. Don't put stock doesn't mean don't be nice, make friends, be helpful, work hard etc. It mean don't be naive. It means also invest in stocks, skills, other income streams, networking etc.
77pt77 1 days ago [-]
Has it ever occurred to you that you have it backwards?
He has this mentality because he has never been valued, not the other way around.
rexer 1 days ago [-]
Certainly there’s a feedback loop, impossible to say which came first
Disposal8433 2 days ago [-]
I have the same experience. Multiple companies with a crazy manager that bullied and insulted employees. The bosses never do anything because the manager is always right.
At my last job I was the only developer who knew bash and Linux. I handled everything until a new CTO came and destroyed the servers with his lack of technical knowledge.
I was critically useful to the company until I broke down due to the daily harassment. I became valued the instant I gave my two weeks notice, but I still told them to go to hell.
dakiol 2 days ago [-]
> At my last job I was the only developer who knew bash and Linux.
Where or how so you find such jobs/companies? Whenever I interview for non faang companies I’ve been asked things like the cap theorem, concurrency issues, microservice patterns, ddd, and of course on top of that the live coding and systems design interviews.
For once, I’d like to join a company in which I seem to bring something only I know.
coldpie 1 days ago [-]
Sounds like you want systems programming? Some areas to look in could be open source companies and embedded software.
deadbabe 1 days ago [-]
Those are mostly incompetent companies. You might be the only one who knows something critical, but it’s not as fun as it seems.
rokhayakebe 1 days ago [-]
They still did not value you in the end. That was just manipulation to get you to stay.
0xEF 2 days ago [-]
I've heard what you're describing phrase as follows:
"If you want to know who truly values you, look for the people who would not be able to replace you with someone else."
That usually has us pointing to friends and family, with the odd exception.
JadeNB 2 days ago [-]
I'm not sure this is a reliable guide. I'm in academia, and the people who really can't be replaced are the administrative staff with hard-won institutional knowledge and connections--but they're valued far less than splashy big-name faculty with no institutional loyalty.
jimbokun 1 days ago [-]
Why would administrative staff ever be valued over the people providing the core purpose of the institution?
jcims 1 days ago [-]
Perform an experiment.
Ask them all to take a month off and see which has greater impact and over which timescales.
Usefulness and value have different dimensions that can be orthogonal or even in opposition to one another. Many of us have worked in the presence of brilliant assholes and had to ponder that question.
roncesvalles 1 days ago [-]
I agree. It sounds like lack of documented processes and leadership oversight have made that corner of the organization a kind of personal fiefdom of the administrative staff.
JadeNB 1 days ago [-]
> I agree. It sounds like lack of documented processes and leadership oversight have made that corner of the organization a kind of personal fiefdom of the administrative staff.
There are lots of problems with the way universities are set up, but, from the point of view of a faculty member and, I suspect, also that of a student, "more leadership oversight" would solve none of them. (Unless it was accompanied by a change of university leadership from those who think of a university primarily as a business, to those who think of a university primarily as a university. I have only spent a long time at one university, so it is possible that this problem is peculiar to my university, but my impression from talking to my colleagues is that it is not.)
light_hue_1 2 days ago [-]
Yet the admin staff is the first to get fired and treated badly any time something changes.
While faculty basically no matter how useless can never be fired.
"can't be replaced" has two opposing meanings in your post.
directevolve 1 days ago [-]
They can’t be fired, but if they stop bringing in grants, they can face steep pay cuts and lab closure.
JadeNB 9 hours ago [-]
> They can’t be fired, but if they stop bringing in grants, they can face steep pay cuts and lab closure.
This describes the situation of tenured faculty (who are definitely who I had in mind when I referred to splashy big names), but universities have long been moving to a model with as few tenured or tenurable faculty as possible, where some instructors are full time but non-tenure-track, and others are part time (and so, for example, don't have to be paid benefits). At my university these are called lecturers and adjuncts, but other names exist. Both jobs involve renewable contracts (of different lengths), so they need not even be fired, just not have their contracts renewed.
msgodel 2 days ago [-]
The only way to have a pleasant relationship with a corporation is to approach it with as much apathy is they do.
apwell23 2 days ago [-]
thats what they want too
if you bring even a tiny bit of your spunk, enthusiasm and passion to work you;d be labeled a problem immediately.
They want apathetic mindless drones.
zwnow 2 days ago [-]
Which is the correct approach for enterprises with tons of employees. Humans are never happy once they reach groups of certain sizes. Can only handle projects with certain sizes with apathy. Initiative may be looked for in smaller environments.
pixl97 1 days ago [-]
Ah the joys of the MonkeySphere.
ktallett 2 days ago [-]
This is key. Such nuances and changes can be seen as a real negative behaviour by some when of course they are not.
havefunbesafe 1 days ago [-]
If you ever own a company, you'll find this concept flipped upside down.
77pt77 1 days ago [-]
If you're called by your family you are better off than the majority of humans.
shubhamk11 2 days ago [-]
[flagged]
0xEF 2 days ago [-]
return TEST_SUCCESS
fc417fc802 2 days ago [-]
The domain of the email in your profile seems to be dead at the DNS level FYI.
0xEF 2 days ago [-]
Thanks. It was the domain for an old blog that I took down awhile ago.
If you were trying to contact me privately for some reason, I can provide a working email if you give me a brief idea of what you wanted to discuss in a comment.
fc417fc802 1 days ago [-]
I wasn't. It was just a clever domain so I tried to pull it up out of curiosity. HN profiles often link to some interesting stuff.
dinetrimr 2 days ago [-]
I used to recognize this at my last job, pay was good but left searching for other opportunities where I felt valued in a team.
Two years later and I've about burned through all my savings looking for any job at all. Seems like current market has decided my skills and connections are not enough. Fixing to just uber or something next month out of desperation. I used to make six figures.
Turns out I decided to quit at the absolute worst time. I may not have been valued socially at the last gig but I felt somewhat useful. Nowadays enough time has passed and I no longer feel valued nor useful. The distinction fails to make any difference when the threat of losing it all constantly looms over you.
If I could I would go back in time and berate my self to keep that job at all costs and remain valueless, instead of insist grass is greener for some nebulous quality of "valued". Some things like health insurance are just more important than some intangible ideas of being valued or not by higher ups I won't really understand.
aaviator42 2 days ago [-]
I'm sorry to hear that, and hope you're able to figure out something sustainable soon.
To other readers: don't quit your job until you have a new source of income locked in!
dinetrimr 2 days ago [-]
Thought I had one, turned in my notice but they rescinded offer a week later for no obvious reason and went hiring freeze. Was about the exact point when the market started inclining couple of years ago. Still think if I had interviewed a month before I would have got the position Been jobless ever since.
I blame my self for it, for not having the insight. Consequences were severe
darkwater 2 days ago [-]
No, you should blame the company that rescinded the offer!
Now it's probably too late but, did you try talking again with your former manager to see if you could get back your old job, after the offer was rescinded?
dinetrimr 1 days ago [-]
That was a while ago sadly, I just decided to learn my lesson and move on. Tough to square with the loss of my savings but is what it is
Kept up my certs and all, still do tech stuff all them time, think I'll have a job even if it's minimum wage and underemployment at some point
Don't beat yourself up over what amounts to luck. You could just as easily have remained where you were and later been caught up in a layoff.
By definition risks don't always go your way.
matwood 2 days ago [-]
> where I felt valued in a team.
To quote Don Draper, “that’s what the money is for!” Find your meaning or value somewhere else not in your job and it will both be longer lasting and likely much deeper.
dinetrimr 1 days ago [-]
It would be nice, heck I would accept a 50% pay cut for a better team since I didn't even need all the money I was earning (except for my current survival I guess), money isn't what it's about to me so long as I can feed myself, but my job hunt now isn't really about team value anymore. It's not something I can afford to think about when any job has to do for the rent. I could go back to stocking shelves if the next data entry thing I feel over skilled for doesn't get back to me
I like my hobbies, just I can't pretend to enjoy them all day when my current lifestyle has been unsustainable for so long. It was easier start of the job drought and I could do whatever I wanted and it felt nice, picked up some (unmarketable but fun) skills. Now it's all caught up to me.
"At least the gig economy is an option" is a thought that appeared in my head recently
pixl97 1 days ago [-]
>pay was good but left searching for other opportunities where I felt valued in a team.
One of the bad things about heiring is that it always seems that it's much easier to get a job if you have a job.
As a warning to others, get a new job before you quit your old one.
mergy 2 days ago [-]
I like and appreciate the authors points but just wish they would have done more with the connection of the two.
You might be valued because you are many things. You might not be valued because of many things. If you are able to be useful and valued, while also being fulfilled and happy personally and professionally -- that's great.
But, there is normally not a direct and clear situation like this in organizations. If there is, enjoy it while you have it. Normally, it's not as direct and clear to assess and understand. You are also part of this equation. The dynamics in an organization are normally not consistent.
Dynamics in organizations can shift quickly. Culture can also mean you could be doing all you can but the situation is no longer good for you for a variety of reasons or good for the organization.
Informed re-evaluation of your own value in your situation, at reasonable points, is vital. You may be not as great as you think you are, you might not be able to feel valued or useful in a changed or toxic environment. You may not care about that stuff. The organization may be incapable of providing any of that validation but, ultimately, it's up to you to decide what you are able to live with and why. How the organization provides whatever for you to contemplate is part of the calculation that must rest on your shoulders -- and that effort is ongoing and important.
47282847 2 days ago [-]
“ I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.“ - General and Commander-in-Chief Weimar Republic https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord
gadders 2 days ago [-]
It's almost like you could create a 2 x 2 matrix of Useful Vs Valued
- Not Useful, Not Valued: Get good or change jobs/industries.
- Not Useful, Valued: talks a good game (or is doing useful stuff that is not apparent)
-Useful, Not Valued: Could be useful at non-strategic stuff, or does good work without self-marketing, or has bad management and needs to leave.
- Useful, Valued: Ideal situation.
steveBK123 2 days ago [-]
Some of these may also work in different life stages.
Want reasonable job security & compensation but currently pursuing a masters / raising an infant / dealing with elderly parental care - "useful¬ valued" may not be so bad for a few years.
JadeNB 2 days ago [-]
Isn't "not valued" at odds with "reasonable job security?"
steveBK123 2 days ago [-]
If there's a grid of 4 types of people, the two boxes of "not useful" are usually let go first
lovich 2 days ago [-]
You respect your managers a lot more than I would.
The not valued column is let go first via the fact that the value function is what decides if their managers care or not
steveBK123 1 days ago [-]
Good points and maybe expressed to generally by me.
I suspect who is laid off first is more to do with the lifecycle of the company actually, having been in high/low/negative growth environments myself.
I have found in negative growth environments, managers tend to get pretty sober about who is actually useful not just valued, and cut accordingly. Negative growth environments is also when more cuts happen, with generally a worse job hunting environment if you are cut.
But in frivolous times, yes, I've seen plenty of useful people get cut.. but they always bounce back better anyway.
closewith 2 days ago [-]
That's missing the point here completely, as it's not the useless who are let go first, it's the unvalued.
closewith 2 days ago [-]
The opposite is true. In those situations, you want to be valued but useless.
Tsiklon 2 days ago [-]
The punnet square of value and utility
htrp 2 days ago [-]
turns out the consulting firms stole from the german army
naikrovek 2 days ago [-]
> does good work without self-marketing
I kinda feel called out. My work should speak for itself. It often does, but I will always forget it when it comes time to speak of myself nicely.
I simply do not care to self-promote. It feels vain and vanity is one of the most useless things possible to me. Donald Trump is about 98% vanity, if you want to see what vanity is.
Not being able to actually cite the things I’ve done to someone who already knows what those things are has cost me several promotions, though. I can do the work, I can forecast needs, be ready for them, and solve them before they arrive, but because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me.
Now that I’ve typed all that out, I am remembering just how many times this has happened, and now twenty minutes into the week and I am 100% misanthropic. People suck.
gadders 1 days ago [-]
I am bad at this as well. I think part of it is to do with my upbringing as a poor, smart kid at a bad school. The way to be well thought of by teachers was to not cause a fuss and get good grades whilst the teachers concentrated on the disruptive kids.
I shudder at the thought of becoming one of those gobshites that asks senior management questions in townhalls like "How do you stay so grounded with all the awesome responsibility you are dealing with?"
There a few things that motivated me to start self publicising a bit more:
1) A Chris Williamson podcast where he said "Shy bairns get nowt" and also "Somewhere there is someone with half your talent and twice your confidence earning 10x your salary."
2) I email all my senior stakeholders (not just my line manager) details of the major projects I am working on. I try and frame this as an "FYI" and an offer for them to add extra context or re-align my priorities.
It is good. I used to do that and get some positive feedback on it. But lately with change in management who are least interested in such mails, and with constant banging of stay in your lane, I just lost the energy.
Point is these things can yield result but it is neither guaranteed nor welcome so many times. Also praising "leadership" is race to bottom, there are always bigger suck ups pushing themselves.
naikrovek 1 days ago [-]
I've tried the brag document but I just can't do it. "ooh look at me, so special" i hate that crap.
I don't need 10x my salary, I just want to feel valued by my team. I have never felt that in my entire life, even though team members often mention that I save their bacon repeatedly in team meetings with supervisors. it's like no one hears it.
unless i change who i am as a person i will never be valued at work. it's just that simple. I won't play the vanity game solely for money. I won't do anything solely for money. I just want to feel valued and I don't think that is possible for me. I'm just not wired to feel that. So fuck me I guess. "you don't fit the mold kid, so you can go fly a kite"
gadders 1 days ago [-]
I know what you mean.
For me, the motivation to move out of my comfort zone and become more "braggy" was to provide a better standard of living for my family. And also my ego - getting annoyed at seeing less talented people do better.
gen220 2 days ago [-]
Hey, I've been where you are.
> because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me
You need to re-frame this problem, so it's not about "self-promotion", and instead is about proactively forecasting the needs (as you put it) of your manager, not just the technical system you're managing.
If you view it as part of your job to document (not promote, just document) the work you've done, it's trivial to collect those links into a doc at the end of the promotion cycle, hand it to your manager and collect a promotion. Make sure that you're communicating throughout the cycle that you're expecting a promotion in your 1:1's and ask if you're on track towards that goal / if there's anything un-discussed you'd need to do to get there.
It's critical to understand that this is not vanity, it's part of your job (if you want a promotion, that is). I hope this is helpful!
naikrovek 1 days ago [-]
how can i understand what my manager needs if i don't know what he does?
I have no idea what managers do, and I can't ever get an answer when I ask what managers do. "oh, all kinds of stuff." gosh, thanks. it's so clear, now.
gen220 1 days ago [-]
It's important to understand the incentives of everybody in an organization, even if they're not able to articulate it clearly to you, you should make it your personal mission to understand them. The incentive structure of your manager (i.e. the standard by which they are judged) is to keep their ICs productive while also attempting to keep costs "under control" (i.e. growing, but at a predictable rate that is below some hurdle).
If you want a promotion, your manager needs to be able to explain / provide evidence to their manager (and so on, all the way to the board in theory) as to why you deserve a higher salary.
If you are doing the right work, are able to provide them with an artifact (brag sheet / promotion packet) that concisely outlines the value provided, and consistently provide the signal that you'd be dissatisfied (i.e. potentially leave) without a promotion, you'll get a promotion. It's within your power to remove the only remaining obstacle for them by providing the packet, which is 80% of their work in securing you a promotion.
There are almost always more urgent issues for a manager to address than a high-performing employee who is quietly upset about not getting a promotion. By stepping up and helping them do this small part of their job, you're demonstrating empathy by solving an important but non-urgent problem for them. They will be grateful.
bornfreddy 1 days ago [-]
Not sure if you are looking for an answer or just letting the steam out... But if you are searching for knowledge, then I would suggest picking up a book or two on leading people. It was a big surprise to me that such books exist and that they actually help understand the dynamics in companies, and how to achieve win-win outcomes. Good luck!
infamouscow 1 days ago [-]
Being a leader and being a manager are completely different things.
Leaders primary concern is for those under them.
Managers primary concern is for those above them.
naikrovek 11 hours ago [-]
yeah I think you're right. I work for Managers.
zwnow 2 days ago [-]
Guess I fit the stupid and lazy category, interesting thoughts though. I act like I work half of the day and the other half I procrastinate and work simultaneously. Part of it may be ADHD but somehow it works out for me... Still getting my work done.
apercu 2 days ago [-]
That kind of work avoidance sounds like a lot of work.
Advice would be to try to find a job or role doing something you’re interested it.
A lot of the subject matter of my work is not that interesting to me, and the politics and lack of any sort of vision or leadership at most organizations these days makes project work sometimes stressful. But (maybe as a survival mechanism?) I’ve found that focusing on improving how I do my work and taking pride in my output (even if no one else notices) is a way for me to have some control over my work day.
This way it’s about me and I’m not looking for external validation (which isn’t coming for a myriad of reasons that would be exhausting to list here).
My point is that we all (most of us anyway) have to work so my theory is that it’s best to try to find some balance of interesting, pays ok and you’re good enough at it that you can find some meaning in your work.
To me, work avoidance sounds mentally draining.
fc417fc802 2 days ago [-]
> work avoidance sounds mentally draining.
Procrastination isn't an active thing, it just happens. If that doesn't make sense to you that probably means you don't have that particular issue.
apercu 8 hours ago [-]
I do, only I've spent a lot of time the last 15 years thinking objectively about my strengths and weaknesses. I am so "lazy" that I work hard nearly every day. Let me explain.
1. Big tasks are stressful because, well, they're big. So I break them down in to components and chip away every day at them so that I am not overwhelmed. I call this taking care of my future self.
2. I love to have days where I get to wake up and do whatever I want to do that day. But I can't enjoy that freedom with bad conscious tasks hanging over my head, so I work my ass off to have those days. For example, my goal for the ENTIRE summer was to spread a yard of mulch, re-build two firewood racks, re-stack and move the logs that are in different areas to keep them seasoning, split and stack a cord of wood for next winter, lay posts for a fruit tree espalier, rebuild shed doors, cut back the wood line 10 feet. These are all already done because we had a nice weather spring. On top of that I changed the fluids on the tractor, the lawnmower, the riding lawnmower and cleaned the gutters.
3. Future proof my job. I got ISO 27001 certification in the spring during dry project spell, and I'm now doing my CCP certification. I have also made it a goal to do 2 hours of business development and networking every week.
4. I do billing on weekdays now, no longer on the weekends.
5. Exercise and sleep. Eat healthy. Don't drink alcohol. This means I wake up early and fresh and motivated to do a couple hours of early work every day. This usually means I'm done with my workday by 2:00pm.
6. Remove toxic relationships from your life. This could be friends, an employer, a client, whatever. They suck your happiness which impacts your productivity.
7. Don't keep up with the Jones's. Figure out what makes you happy. I've never cared about how people view me, I wear jeans and t-shirts mostly. Fancy cars & houses do nothing for me (I live in a great house on an amazing property in a very special area next to a city I have always loved even though it wasn't my "home", but it's not a McMansion). My car is low mileage and 10 years old.
8. Don't do ALL the hobbies. Find the one or two that you really get a lot out of and focus on those. For me it's music.
Did I know or do much of this when I was 20? no. 30? not really. Maybe some of this just comes from experience.
But mostly, don't believe the hype.
zwnow 2 days ago [-]
Nah actual work is mentally draining. While I avoid work I do private projects that are actually interesting to me. I work, just not on company stuff that I don't care about.
apercu 8 hours ago [-]
Avoiding work is mentally draining for me because it's an unfulfilled obligation.
theoreticalmal 2 days ago [-]
What personal projects are you working on these days? Or do you have multiple?
zwnow 1 days ago [-]
I am a quitter, I start projects for 2 weeks until I find the next shiny thing. I have a tendency to quit once projects go from learning to tedious repetitive work.
Carp 1 days ago [-]
I'm the exact same. Sometimes work scratches that itch and I can work a productive 8 hours. Other times it's boring repetitive work and I'll start slacking off.
apercu 8 hours ago [-]
Learn to finish projects, that's where the satisfaction is. Perhaps go into it without an overambitious design, hit a milestone. Step away. Come back later and augment.
eyesofgod 1 days ago [-]
Same except the massively productive days are getting rarer and rarer.
endemic 2 days ago [-]
> Advice would be to try to find a job or role doing something you’re interested it.
Sounds great, where do I find it?
apercu 10 hours ago [-]
I had to quit my job as president of a company and start a consulting practice to do this (to varying degree of success, freedom requires constant vigilance).
Your mileage may vary.
rigrassm 2 days ago [-]
I had to double check that I wasn't sleep posting or something cause that's literally what 90% of my days are like.
Probably 5% of the time I'll get stuck completely and those days are immensely stressful but on the flip side, the 5% of the time I actually am able to silence the procrastination demon in my ear, those days are so satisfyingly productive.
repeekad 2 days ago [-]
Or you’re clever and lazy but haven’t found the right general to promote you to high leadership yet. I think of Sir Ken Robinson whenever I hear anyone say ADHD is synonymous with “stupid”
And guess which ones got hold of most leadership positions in current days...
ionwake 2 days ago [-]
I worked as a small elite unit in a world leading airline, team of about 5 poeple that went down to basically 1 ( after I was finally labelled as "difficult to work with" - ( I actually was always quiet calm friendly used to working in critical teams and worked basically close to 12 hour days.
Eventually a deadline was missed and "someone had to be blamed".
Having worked in countless companies I was ready for this and calm, basically fine with it, just kept working hard.
But I always remember of this one "middle manager" product lead or something, was constantly interrupting people, sitting with them, walking through what they were doing, following them, and eventually made a private accusation that I was "insulting other members of the team". ( I was basically silo'd knew no one, and also knew better than to criticise anyone). Stay with me...
I got chewed out by a seemingly random , mild mannered usually polite manager who never had a problem with me, infront of a few people ( I didnt say anything - instinctively I just knew this mean I was about to be let go, nothing I would say would help, and tensions were high due to deadlines ), accused of being troublesome etc. I calmly said I didnt know what he was stating, he calmed down and left.
Then I was "released from my contract".
As a consultant I don't get upset by these things, I am fine with it, I work as hard as I can and when the contract is over I leave.
However I will never forget how the one man, who never actually did any work, who interrupted everyone, and who made these accusations, was basically doing everything he could do "seem like he had a job".
He was infact, not quite the "hardworking and stupid". My only amendment that perhaps he was a special version of this, the "hardworking and unethical".
Only ever saw that once in nearly 2 decades of working but Im sure there were many more I didnt pick up on,
He stayed on, causing trouble, disrupting etc, and I always realised its because he kept a close profile to his superior, who had no eyes on the ground, and blindly trusted him due to an overload of work.
EDIT > Sorry I want to emphasise the main take away in my rant, is that the polite quiet well meaning, happy, working, well adjusted polite english gentleman behind me who was in management was suddenly shouting at me in front of others because he felt shocked at the accusation that I was a bad person, obviously which mean I deserved a dressing down, stood up and just starting shouting at me. This was a calm, relatively intelligent person, with his things in order, not affiliated with my project. Yet he just assumed an email chain from management around him, possibly with a very accusatory snippet from the trouble maker, was enough to convince him to act unprofessional and give me the dressing down. If anyone would have got into trouble or sued, it would have been this well meaning "smart" individual. That was my other main point.
In the end, there were no moves I could have made, but it was incredibly surprising how many poeple were easily manipulated into being unprofessional etc because of false information coming from their tier / one tier up. Whole narratives painted. It was quite interesting. Eventually that individual must have been let go, but what a desperate, unethical way to live.
eurekin 2 days ago [-]
> However I will never forget how the one man, who never actually did any work, who interrupted everyone, and who made these accusations, was basically doing everything he could do "seem like he had a job".
Judging from your description, you could actually be a threat to his position. So that might be a preemptive strike.
ionwake 2 days ago [-]
I had not even thought of that! I did accidentally after a 10 hour day - slip for for half a second and said "what!?!?" it was less than a second and I was half way through leaving - it was after working hours, it was a big, complex question and interrupted my flow brashly, I didnt even realise I had said it in the wrong tone and that other poeple may have heard it. I immediately did my best to answer the question, but that slight slip up must have made him feel embarrased and under threat. I remember it now. To be fair it was after work, the wrong moment and really an interruption, when a calm "can we discuss this at one point" was expected in that env.
pixl97 1 days ago [-]
A lot of people in management also have imposter syndrome which makes anyone under them that appears competent seem like a danger to them.
While doing a contract and consulting I've ran into this, but nothing like my wife in her career.
First corporate job as webdev/design, had her boss get fired for embezzlement of about quarter of a mil. Bosses after that kinda sucked so she left.
Second job (marketing manager/design) was fine for a while, until her great boss left and they replaced her with a sketchy character. I listened in on a number of her meetings and we came to the conclusion that he wanted to bring in a contracting group that was going to give him kickbacks. This guy seemed highly threatened by her. She found another job and within 6 months that guy was fired and the people that still worked there didn't know the exact details but there were hush hush whispers of fraud.
Third job (sr marketing manager) was fine with the first boss over her. But as always, that person found an even better paying position and left. Next director had an issue with taking other people's work and calling it her own. Wife did something unintentionally to embarrass the director in a meeting when the director had taken my wife's work and put her name on it and upper level management saw it. A few days later my wife was put on a PIP by her manager the director even though she had got outstanding remarks on the last quarter review that had ended a month before. Needless to say she did the following. Went and got a better job (director level now) but didn't tell them that. Then went to HR and filed a complaint over the PIP and ethics violations. After some back and forth it ended up with her leaving with a severance.
Really everything I've seen in management as you go up higher in the food chain is that it seems everyone is willing to, and expects others to knife them in the back in a lot of companies.
eurekin 1 days ago [-]
> and expects others to knife them in the back
Sounds a lot like a projection, of what they would actually do
eurekin 1 days ago [-]
Another wild, unsubstantiated guess... The reason for him interrupting others, might be the stress caused by not understanding what's being said, but having to hold the professional image
2b3a51 2 days ago [-]
...the polite quiet well meaning, happy, working, well adjusted polite English gentleman...
You need to watch out for those, speaking as one myself. We did run an empire once and not by being nice. Have a look at George Orwell's short pieces set in Burmah (now Myanmar).
ionwake 2 days ago [-]
fantastic - will do!
roncesvalles 1 days ago [-]
I've noticed a strong trend that newly hired managers suffer from imposter syndrome more than anyone else. Rocking the boat, lighting fires, picking fights with their reports or people outside the team - these are common symptoms.
rokhayakebe 1 days ago [-]
I am in my mid forties. I have always walked away the moment I have been yelled at any job. Each time I have done this I had zero dollars in the bank. That is a privilege I give to my family, and they don't even use it. If it is a big organization walk straight to HR or go home and call a lawyer.
ionwake 1 days ago [-]
I also agree it’s o er the line. However what I do is I leave “on my
Own terms” as a form of victory. I will make that the moment I mentally decide to leave but I let myself choose the timing as much as possible as a form of not letting my environment affect me. Not sure if that makes sense
temporallobe 2 days ago [-]
In reality it’s more like a line graph with stupid to clever on the Y axis, and lazy to hardworking on the X axis.
jrvieira 2 days ago [-]
Yeah that general doesn't seem too clever
roncesvalles 1 days ago [-]
Unfortunately I've found that big tech companies are stuffed with "stupid and hardworking", an inevitable consequence of perf eval cultures that value work output over anything else.
MrDrDr 2 days ago [-]
Thank you for posting this. Someone had told me this and attributed it to Clausewitz - so I've never been able to track it down. I've used it to make the case that laziness is not always a bad thing - i.e. lazy people find it easier to delegate.
stanford_labrat 1 days ago [-]
Love this quote and tell it to friends often. I strive to be the clever and lazy officer. It was also eye opening to meet the first hardworking+stupid individual of my career and see just how much damage they really could do.
Archelaos 1 days ago [-]
Beware: anyone who confuses bourmonts with management rules belongs in the last category.
nand_gate 1 days ago [-]
My experiences track this, being lazy and clever is a cheat code in many ways.
2 days ago [-]
austin-cheney 2 days ago [-]
This is far more simple than it sounds. Do what others cannot to deliver success to the internal goals of the business. It is always more about capabilities and delivery and it’s never really about hard work.
These capabilities can include authoring new tools but most often are soft skills and better written communication. Many people will fail at this because they cannot perform or independently determine their own performance criteria.
Sometimes the employers will set you up for failure by limiting your value potential so that you are a commodity. In these cases value is not what you add but how well you play a game.
steveBK123 2 days ago [-]
Yes, its never actually about actual effort.
Rewards are handed out based on outcomes, interpersonal skills and PERCEIVED effort.
billy99k 1 days ago [-]
exactly. I've been a consultant for a large company for 7+ years. We had a very large conversion project and I am the subject matter expert on one of the internal systems involved. My effort during the launch was minimal, because I knew the system so well and any data needed, I had already built tools years ago for extracting/manipulating it.
My value (and effort), was seen as high from upper management. I also learned to schedule teams, slack, and email messages accordingly. Even if I get something done very fast, I can easily manipulate the perception around it.
georgeecollins 1 days ago [-]
I think perceived effort can be a positive or a negative. When you are starting you want to make it clear you are a hard worker. After that, no one cares and its better to look like you can easily handle what you are doing. No one promotes the person who is working really hard at the level below.
steveBK123 1 days ago [-]
Well it's a goldilocks situation isn't it? No one promotes the person below who appears to be effortlessly coasting either.
einpoklum 2 days ago [-]
> Simple... Do what others cannot to deliver success to the internal goals of the business.
This is not simple at all:
1. The "things which others cannot" are, typically, not the tasks you are given. So you would be neglecting the work you've been actually given to work on other things which you believe are important.
2. Things which people can't do are typically considered as irrelevant-to-do, and thus not a goal. When you do those things, it is likely that their positive impact is not recognized by most people.
pixl97 1 days ago [-]
And the big one...
-3. Other people (mostly above you) will steal your glory and call it their own.
austin-cheney 1 days ago [-]
It is astonishingly simple, but it isn't easy. Not everybody is willing to do the research and practice outside the job to make it easy.
jayd16 1 days ago [-]
Simply be valuable. A child's game.
ChrisMarshallNY 1 days ago [-]
I have been both.
I worked for a Japanese company, for most of my career. My non-Japanese status, often meant that folks with clout would not look to me, for input, when making strategies.
Personally, I think that it was OK, for a lot of stuff, as I really wasn't a "native," when it came to corporate culture, but E.L.E. disastrous, in a couple of instances; namely, where they were dealing with American companies. They made critical mistakes, by not understanding the culture.
But they did value me, and my team. They gave us work that was "corporate DNA" stuff. So secret, even our CEO didn't know about it. We had a very high level of trust, with Japan. Not sure the names the author gave to the two different approaches are ones that I would use.
submeta 2 days ago [-]
What a wonderful text. I have seen soo many colleagues who do solid, if not extraordinary work, yet they get paid mediocre salaries. And then there are people who create an aura, as if they can walk on water. And get promoted constantly, get new roles, new opportunities. But when you scratch the surface, they are not necessarily doing much better work, but they are informed, know latest trends, use the right buzz words, bring a fresh air into the team, new models, mindsets, paradigms. And they think very highly of themselves. Unlike the others who do their job well, but are treated not like rock stars, and do not signal that they are ready to leave the company. So they always stay where they are, get paid the same. And management does not feel like treating them special to keep them.
LeifCarrotson 2 days ago [-]
There is an enormous, invisible river of wealth flowing all around us. An individual can contribute to it, and draw some off from it as it flows by. In an ideal world, each would withdraw in direct proportion to the amount they contribute: A salesman goes out and shares a solution to a problem that a customer didn't know could be solved, and takes a commission for this information distribution, an executive turns a large problem into small ones which can be solved by individual engineers and gets compensation in proportion to the managerial activities involved, and those individual engineers create the solution and receive a salary in proportion to their skill and effort and share in creating that value. Right?
No, this is too often completely wrong. Having utility is only half the battle, you also need leverage to withdraw in proportion to that utility. If the customers all know about the problem and your product, but your company has a near monopoly, the salesmen can position themselves as middlemen where the entire transaction flows past them, and they'll siphon off some nice round number - say 10% - completely disconnected from the minimal or even negative value they contributed to the process. Conversely, the engineers can find themselves completely powerless to negotiate compensation, producing value to the company 10x or 20x their salary, out of view of the customers and with no leverage to extract any more or less from the process.
> ‘Go where the rich and powerful are,’ I’d tell him, ‘and learn their ways. They can be flattered and they can be scared. Please them enormously or scare them enormously, and one moonless night they will put their fingers to their lips, warning you not to make a sound. And they will lead you through the dark to the widest, deepest river of wealth ever known to man. You’ll be shown your place on the riverbank, and handed a bucket all your own. Slurp as much as you want, but try to keep the racket of your slurping down. A poor man might hear.’
This is related to Marx’s concept of surplus value. That capitalism is based on most people being under-compensated for the full value of their labor so that someone else can be overcompensated for their labor.
bko 1 days ago [-]
> If you’re valued, you’ll likely see a clear path for advancement and development, you might get more strategic roles and involvement in key decisions. If you are just useful, your role might feel more stagnant.
I think it might just be the organization or people. I know a lot of engineers that don't want to progress to management or other "strategic" roles. They're happy doing what they're doing and they often complain about a culture that expects them to grow in these very narrowly defined bands that eschews technical ability.
Framing it this way as though to truly "value" an employee you have to expand the scope and nature of his work does more harm that good. I think it's more about having an honest conversation with management and set expectations. Management often doesn't want to mess up something if it's going well so may not take initiative.
georgeecollins 1 days ago [-]
I think this is missing the point. I have been at the same level in organizations where people really cared what you thought. They ask, invite you to councils, show you future plans. And I have had similar roles where I was shut out. The point is not whether you want to advance or not. Are you valued?
whatnow37373 2 days ago [-]
If you earn some dough and are treated somewhat nice you have already hit the jackpot.
Don’t give up a perfectly good job just because you have power fantasy issues. You will always be a worker bee, that’s just how the world is set up. Someone or something will own your ass regardless of your compensation structure.
UK-AL 1 days ago [-]
I'm pretty sure people living off capital don't have that problem. It just won't be you.
edg5000 1 days ago [-]
Well said
dotdi 2 days ago [-]
> I had become the go-to person for making things run smoothly, for fixing urgent problems, for delivering. But every time I pushed toward more strategic and ambitious directions, there was a lot of can-kicking and “let’s think about it” that went nowhere. I was incredibly useful to the organization, but not necessarily valued, and at some point, I started feeling a sense of stagnation. Compensation was good, the actual job was aligned with my interests, but that sense of being just a useful caretaker was hitting my motivation. In the end, I had to move on to another role.
this hits home, hard.
brabel 2 days ago [-]
I was reading that and thinking "some people are never happy". I mean, they got a nice job, nice compensation, recognition... the only thing missing, apparently, was that they were not part of the company's "strategy team"? In my experience, you can be the smartest person in the world, if the company already has a small strategy team (or top management) that is pulling all the strings and they're happy with that setup, you'll basically never be able to become a part of that, barring major changes in the company's org chart.
necovek 2 days ago [-]
If someone is valued, they will at least get pulled into private, 1-1 conversations with one of those people pulling all the strings.
No matter if their suggestions would be followed, their opinion would be heard, which ultimately establishes how valued one is.
I've seen this happen more than once, and most often, that person was recommended as the successor for who they advised.
I've been on both sides, and I like being "valued" that way: otherwise, I just feel like I am not contributing with the best I can provide, and not enjoying the ride.
It's just who I am, and it's not about "never being happy" — we all aspire to some things, and this beats compensation to me.
ZephyrBlu 2 days ago [-]
If you are happy being a worker bee it's great. If you want to take on more responsibility and have a seat at the table, it feels like you're being treated with kiddy gloves.
A lot of the kind of work the author mentions is done with the expectation that it will translate into more responsibility or influence at some point. If the company said "you're a great developer, but you'll never be more than that" the author probably wouldn't have invested to the same degree.
UK-AL 1 days ago [-]
This is explicit strategy companies use. To be expected
DiscourseFan 2 days ago [-]
Well yeah, the only way to get to that position is if you get in early on a startup, make one your own, or get along really well with the top brass and have the knack for it.
nubinetwork 2 days ago [-]
> If you’re reading this and wondering which side of the line you are on, I encourage you to take a moment to step back and look beyond the surface. Are you valued, or just useful?
Thanks for reminding me again that my 20 year career has been completely useless, other than being a "seat-filler".
acheron 1 days ago [-]
I've been heavily feeling that recently too. I think in 20+ years of working there were maybe 2 or 3 of them where I had even a little bit of "valued".
apples_oranges 2 days ago [-]
According to this definition, being involved more, I'd rather be useful than valued. Like Socrates who went to the market to see what things he doesn't need, I cherish each meeting I am not invited to. It's a blessing.
As long as the pay is good (or better) than in the "valued" path, useful is better.
Exception: I have equity and the decisions made are bad.
rimbo789 2 days ago [-]
The pay for the useful pay is so rarely better than valued though
ronbenton 2 days ago [-]
With all the layoffs happening in my company, I’ll take at least a bit of being valued right now
rokhayakebe 1 days ago [-]
Side hustle. Sidelancing.
1 days ago [-]
dedicate 2 days ago [-]
Isn't being incredibly useful actually a pretty solid way to be valued, especially in the trenches? Maybe 'useful' is just 'valued' in work boots instead of a fancy suit.
aaronbaugher 1 days ago [-]
People can get used to a certain level of usefulness from a person, and start to take it for granted. The first time you swoop in and do something in an hour that had been holding others up for weeks, they're astounded by your usefulness. The tenth time, it's just what you do, so it's expected.
And yes, that does seem to happen more if you're wearing work boots, probably because people who never wear work boots assume that, if it can be done in work boots, it can't be as astounding and valuable as it appeared at first, or you would have moved beyond work boots by now.
Usefulness may hold its value in the trenches, but the people ultimately deciding everyone's salary generally aren't in the trenches.
bravetraveler 2 days ago [-]
Speaking from experience... it's hard to tell. Yes, but also: no. I know 'useful' is employable.
I have been more easily valued for my 'use' by being easier to manipulate. Or, sorry, felt more open/safe. Money spends the same: barely, too much work.
Layoffs? To quote Janet Jackson: 'what have you done for me lately?'
phyzome 1 days ago [-]
It would be nice if that were true, but there isn't as much correlation between those two as one would wish.
hnthrow90348765 2 days ago [-]
It should be, but the cold, hard meritocracy just doesn't exist, so you need to combine your useful work with soft skills to have your work valued
riehwvfbk 2 days ago [-]
Depends on whether you want a say in the direction of the trench you are digging, or just want to dig from here until quitting time.
eqmvii 2 days ago [-]
It’s the difference between partnership track and various “counsel” type titles at law firms.
The former grows (or at least maintains) a book of business and is valuable, the latter has key skills and is useful but clearly not to the same degree.
And like many other contexts, the vast pipeline of people willing to dedicate their lives to trying to be useful mitigates the value of just being useful over time.
Aurornis 1 days ago [-]
> Leadership made it clear that they saw me as critical to the company’s future, not just because of what I had delivered in the past, but to help shape what came next.
The more useful, though more crude, metric I use in my career is to estimate how replaceable or disposable I am.
This is extraordinarily hard to evaluate at first because we all tend to look at our little domains of the code and imagine how they’d collapse without us. You have to have some humility and some business sense to start recognizing how critical you and your inputs are to the company’s mission.
Nothing brings this in focus quite like being in a meeting where a company is forced to cut budgets and lay people off. I know that’s not helpful because most people won’t get to see that directly, but you can start to imagine how that looks if you do the thought exercise enough times. Imagine the company had to cut some percentage of headcount to avoid bankruptcy. Would you be cut at the 10% threshold? The 50% threshold? 80%? I guarantee your first estimates are going to be too optimistic, but it’s a helpful thought exercise.
From the mentorship side, I frequently see people confuse being good at their job with being irreplaceable. When push comes to shove, a lot of companies can cut deeply, hire some entry-level people to put out fires, and coast for a year or two until budgets are good again. This leads to a lot of great but generic front-end, mobile app, devops, or other generic positions getting cut. The company will suffer a bit, but rarely does complete collapse occur (despite what we like to imagine).
On the other hand, there are roles where companies cannot cut without immediate and long lasting pain. Cutting lead developers of core products or kicking out the sales team isn’t an option. It’s always the people working on generic problems, side quests, pet projects, or acting as clean up crews for the main teams who are normally too valuable to put on the generic work who get cut.
It’s possible for work to be valuable but also be eminently replaceable, offshore-able, or be a top candidate for being paused or cancelled when the budgets suddenly get tight.
Yeah the company needs a website and needs front-end developers for it, but does it need to be you? Or even in-house at all?
vitaflo 1 days ago [-]
Most important thing I learned in my career is that everyone is replaceable. Once you realize that and accept it work becomes a lot more freeing.
igvadaimon 2 days ago [-]
I was valued. Then the company laid off the whole country and stopped hiring in that country.
In the end it's just luck.
eulers_secret 1 days ago [-]
Folks don't want to hear it, but our careers are based more on luck than any of us would like.
I avoided the first big round of layoffs at my last company. How? By being so overwhelmingly awesome and valuable that they couldn't afford to lose me?? NO!
I agreed to a smaller pay increase that year so a team member could get a much-deserved larger raise. I accepted more stock grants to help make up the difference. The next round of layoffs was based on stock packages granted to employees. More stock granted == more better, right?
Sheer luck I didn't get the notice that time.
riehwvfbk 2 days ago [-]
If you weren't offered a relocation package, then you probably weren't actually valued. Probably along with the entire office in the country.
igvadaimon 1 days ago [-]
My team/org wasn't even in that country, I was just working remotely from it.
npodbielski 1 days ago [-]
Maybe he was valued in his department but department was not valued inside the company.
riehwvfbk 1 days ago [-]
That's... what I said.
The entire office was likely seen as "staff augmentation" rather than strategic.
willtemperley 1 days ago [-]
If you're employed, you're probably valued and useful in some respect.
I think a much more important question is: what are you being valued for and does that fit with your goals?
A person who wants to build skills to take on the world's most challenging problems probably doesn't want to be valued for their ability to grind on the tedious tasks or because they look good in marketing materials, for example.
bwfan123 1 days ago [-]
> valued, on the other hand, means that you are brought into more conversations, not just to execute, but to help shape the direction
This article is heavy on emotional persuation, but rationally, it is not even operationally defining the terms. It posits the existence of 2 categories of employees, when, it is hard to know if they even exist.
_huayra_ 18 hours ago [-]
The other thing I would encourage folks here to do is self-advocate.
We may deride the bloviations of the folks who are "all talk and no code" and how they seemingly ride the coattails of folks actually in the trenches, but honestly a lot of people do great work and sorta expect it to get "naturally noticed" in the corporate environment.
Not saying ditch your IDE and just throw around buzzwords in boring could've-been-an-email "sync meetings", but don't forget that demonstrating the value you have is also important and often neglected skill.
If a clever PR hotfix merges in the forest, does it make a sound?
I am telling on myself here, in a way, as this article hit hard and with great serendipity: I was part of a RIF at a well-known company this very morning, and I most definitely did not advocate very well for myself despite really holding the projects I was on together technically in the background / shadows.
GuB-42 2 days ago [-]
I seems that there are different meanings to "valued".
Here how the article defines it:
> Being valued, on the other hand, means that you are brought into more conversations, not just to execute, but to help shape the direction. This comes with opportunities to grow and contribute in ways that are meaningful to you and the business.
But I would say that in a business setting, the definition of being valued is usually much less abstract, it just means you are worth money, the value here is a dollar amount.
Being valued this way doesn't mean that you will be given opportunities to grow, but it means that there is a good chance you won't be laid off, and that they will listen to your requests as an employee, because they consider that by losing you, they are going to lose money (that is, your value).
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1 days ago [-]
You’re right about the pay but I disagree about the layoff chances. Salary is rarely ever lowered, so if one is highly paid and suddenly not valued or useful or whatever then they will be more likely to be laid off for the business to get the salary budget back to offer to someone who is more whatever.
npodbielski 1 days ago [-]
I think this is what auhtor meant by being usefull.
magicalhippo 2 days ago [-]
I recently had a bout of this at my current work.
For a while I was struggling to pinpoint my discontent, but I ended up realizing it was because I felt I was undervalued compared to the contributions I had made over the years.
As it happened, my superiors had come to realize the same, so when I asked for a talk, they preempted my plan by announcing this.
As mentioned by the article, I've since been included in much more strategic talks and discussions to help shape the future of the company, as we're moving our products from the desktop to the web.
It's still something I'll keep an eye on, but just realizing the source of my frustration was very helpful. It also made me more aware of how I shouldn't sacrifice too much unless it's being valued, as opposed to just being more useful.
magicalhippo 1 days ago [-]
Was in a hurry, so realize I forgot my main point.
I wish I had realized the source of my frustration and thus acted on it earlier.
It lead to a quite downbeat feeling, which still lingers a bit every now and then.
Of course this was just before the current mass layoffs, so getting a new job was definitely an option then, which I almost certainly would have taken had they not seen me.
writebetterc 2 days ago [-]
> As it happened, my superiors had come to realize the same, so when I asked for a talk, they preempted my plan by announcing this.
What is "this"?
magicalhippo 2 days ago [-]
Sorry, was in a hurry
By "this" I meant that they had undervalued me and my contributions.
As a consequence I got a promotion and, as mentioned, included in higher-level talks.
mindwok 2 days ago [-]
I'd say value, in the way the author defines it, is more a function of scarcity. If you are someone who can get stuff done but you are easily replaced, you are useful - not valuable. If you can get things done that nobody else can, or will, then you are valued.
whatnow37373 2 days ago [-]
In capitalism everything is a function of scarcity. I wonder how long we are going to keep up that particular charade.
meepmorp 1 days ago [-]
> I wonder how long we are going to keep up that particular charade
about as long as the real world continues to have finite resources and people have differing ideas about what to do with them
whatnow37373 1 days ago [-]
Capitalism is just one solution to that problem and I’m not convinced it’s the best one.
latency-guy2 2 days ago [-]
Didn't know other economic systems beat the fundamental nature of physics and reality where infinite isn't simply a concept. Are you sure you're considering a "charade" in the right direction?
whatnow37373 1 days ago [-]
That’s strange, because capitalism is the one that thinks infinity is real. Also it’s trying to break nature, quite literally given the state of our climate.
There are other ways to cooperate that don’t depend on sociopathy and infighting.
latency-guy2 1 days ago [-]
> That’s strange, because capitalism is the one that thinks infinity is real.
Your rhetoric doesn't pass. You contradict yourself in a single turn. Can't cite "scarcity" and "infinity" powers this fictional economic system you thought of as "capitalism".
whatnow37373 1 days ago [-]
You miss the point. It’s not I don’t believe in scarcity or the second law of thermodynamics, it’s that I critique capitalism’s handing of it that is by its very nature exploitative, short-sighted and unsustainable. It needs various and extensive guardrails to be functional at all otherwise it would have destroyed us already.
It’s the classic “capitalism is built on scarcity but behaves as if infinite growth is possible”-critique. There are interesting responses to that but “it’s contradictory” ain’t one of them.
chii 2 days ago [-]
water is useful. Diamond is valued.
So be the diamond, not the water. Unless there's no water around anymore...
Cthulhu_ 2 days ago [-]
The title is a false dichotomy; you should be both, if you're only valued but not useful you're part of this echelon of seat fillers who get fired at layoff rounds to cut costs.
noisy_boy 2 days ago [-]
Usually the valued ones are in charge of hiring and firing.
red_admiral 2 days ago [-]
From King Solomon's Mines, there's a line from the indigenous "bad witch" when she's trapped the protagonists in the jewel hoard cave - something like "What will white man to with the jewels now? Eat them, perhaps?"
whatnow37373 2 days ago [-]
So, basically, be super rare? And hard to work with?
kypro 2 days ago [-]
Assuming you wish to be valued more than you are useful.
postepowanieadm 2 days ago [-]
That's deep.
mrheosuper 2 days ago [-]
you are saying diamond is not useful ?
yoz-y 2 days ago [-]
Diamonds that are actually useful are quite cheap, compared to the useless ones.
larrled 9 hours ago [-]
Can’t be undervalued if you aren’t actually useful for anything. Therefore, value correlates with uselessness, moderated by uniqueness. Generic uselessness is still low value due to supply/demand.
prmph 2 days ago [-]
> I had become the go-to person for making things run smoothly, for fixing urgent problems, for delivering. But every time I pushed toward more strategic and ambitious directions, there was a lot of can-kicking and “let’s think about it” that went nowhere.
If you are effective where you are, why would the organization want to promote you and lose the work you are doing now? Maybe the higher-ups were aware of the Peter Principle.
More deeply, this hints at something we probably all need to internalize. Engineering and "management" should be separate tracks. Right now, management is mostly synonymous with people manage, lording it over people. Good engineers might aspire to rise higher into "management", which might be a poor fit for their skills, interests, and temperament. Engineers should be able to rise to the top as engineers.
If you see management as your ideal destination, then go into that from the start. Become a management trainee, not an engineer. But overall I think (people) management should lose it's aura of prestige. It's just a skill like any other, and people in those positions are frequently ill suited to it.
z3t4 2 days ago [-]
It's more like: Are you useful, or are you friends with the top management. I would say most jobs are 10% skill, 90% softskill and social ranking
k3vinw 2 days ago [-]
This hits close to home after recently being laid off.
I believe in making yourself invaluable, but would caution against falling into a niche. Especially if you want to avoid getting caught up in a layoff. But as long as you have valuable skills you will be able to find other work. Some companies are better at hiring (talent acquisition) than others.
afiodorov 1 days ago [-]
The article's 'useful vs. valued' distinction is spot on, and for me, it largely hinges on perceived replaceability.
Being a diligent workhorse makes you 'useful' - you're reliably closing tickets. But 'valued' often means bringing innovation or strategic foresight that's harder to replicate.
Sometimes, too much visible grind on routine tasks can almost cap your perceived value. It reminds me of the senior dev whose Jira updates might be terse — like 'Continuing research on core problem' — for days. They're not judged on daily ticket volume, but on the eventual breakthrough or critical insight that unblocks everyone or defines the next big thing. That signals a different kind of leverage and indispensability than just high output.
evilduck 1 days ago [-]
> like 'Continuing research on core problem' — for days
I've seen these tickets a bunch.
They have two types of authors, the first is the person flailing to accomplish anything and hoping that they can recruit someone else to figure it out or to take it over before they're found out. The second is the person who is failing to communicate what strategies they're using to solve the problem. Neither person is all that valuable, though the second type will at least be useful to someone who will eventually take credit for their work.
qprofyeh 2 days ago [-]
Feeling valued is the key here. If you need external validation then by all means, work smarter towards it. Become a manager. Become a company influencer. Build a brand, and sell it hard.
At some point later in life, I hope you’ll figure out your own sense of value, true to your being, and decoupled from what others may grant. Your raison d'être.
bawana 2 days ago [-]
I am a physician. I am useful because i can remove kidney stones and relieve the awful pain people find themselves in. My value however continues to decline as the monopolistic practices of insurers and hospital systems (who are now starting their own insurances) has reduced my reimbursement to less than that of a plumber. The money that used to go to workers now goes to the c suite. Ironically they were nonexistent 50 years ago when healthcare delivery was better in the US. This redistribution of ‘value’ has been facilitated by information systems that have allowed data to be centralized and aggregated. I cant wait for AI to replace the c suite so all the money goes to shareholders- maybe then people will wake up.
Ultimately i see this whole trajectory as a communist plot- centralizing control and profit.
thijson 1 days ago [-]
I think a lot of what middle management does may be replaced by AI, leading to flatter organizations. You probably have better insight into this than me, but I feel that the initial briefing with a patient may be done by an AI as well, saving the doctor time.
Caelus9 1 days ago [-]
I’m not sure “useful” or “valued” really captures how things work at most jobs. In my experience, whether you get promoted or paid well has more to do with things like:
how much money you help the company make
whether your role is hard to replace
and honestly, how well you get along with others
But there's another layer too. The people who really stand out often:
think ahead of their manager and get things done before being asked
know how to make the right call in stressful moments
and are just genuinely good to work with
That last one is underrated. In a crisis, the person everyone quietly turns to that's usually the real MVP, no matter their title.
legaltechPM 11 hours ago [-]
I have 100% experienced this distinction. Crushing in, getting stuff done - but management is not interested in promoting me - they like me where I am. Versus crushing it, getting stuff done - and being sought to contribute vision/strategy, being invited to important meetings, and given opportunities to do bigger things.
red_admiral 2 days ago [-]
From the company's point of view, good management is finding the people who are useful and making them feel valued.
A useful person tends to have the ability to get hired elsewhere, and will sometimes do this even at a drop in salary, if they are more valued elsewhere.
noisy_boy 2 days ago [-]
> A useful person tends to have the ability to get hired elsewhere
Sometimes being able to demonstrate that itself can increase your value to your current company.
phibz 1 days ago [-]
I think a lot of this distinction comes down to individual vs group focus.
Being good at your own work makes you useful.
However being strategic, thinking about the bigger picture, AND being able to effectively communicate that while navigating the complex social interactions of your leadership team, that makes you valued and will lead to a path to leadership (managerial or technical).
So many of is have poor social skills. It pays to focus on them and not just the skills relevant to your tasks at hand.
rs186 2 days ago [-]
Great way to fool yourself.
Sure you might get a surprise 50% bonus during a layoff. So you work even harder and put your heart in the company because you feel "grateful" for the appreciation -- the company apparently values you a lot. Guess what? You might be the perfect guy to lay off in the next round (as soon as within a few months), whether because of your role/performance of the quarter/relationship with new boss or just no reason.
Good for you that it didn't happen like that. But plenty of people had such experience.
Which is why I never put more effort or emotion than necessary for my job. When I think I need to work overtime, or when I get frustrated about something/someone at work and keep thinking about it after work, I ask myself, what if I get laid off tomorrow? Then the answer becomes apparent.
It's funny that peasants tell each other the difference between "useful" and "valued". Capitalists can't get more of these. Executives are laughing in their chair reading this article.
palata 2 days ago [-]
Companies should value useful people, and lay off the managers who can't.
noisy_boy 2 days ago [-]
You mean useless managers should put themselves out of the job and starve themselves when they have the choice to do neither?
havblue 1 days ago [-]
I unfortunately still have to revert to the "customer is always right" level of understanding, the customer being either external or management or... whoever can get you booted. A lot of the time it doesn't matter what you fixed on the way to attempting to complete your behind schedule widget. If it's late they may ultimately blame you for it and ignore the positive effects. ... Because someone might have to fall on their sword.
danans 1 days ago [-]
It's interesting to consider the partial inverse of the aspiration behind the article: striving for the combination of non-usefulness and also high-valued. That's kind of what traditional (and probably contemporary) aristocrats are.
As the dowager countess in Downton Abbey said: trying to be useful is so "middle class". She didn't mean it as a compliment.
shahinghasemi 2 days ago [-]
But if you want to be valued you must be useful at the first place.
elric 2 days ago [-]
I don't think so. A lot of managers value people who excel at talking big while doing little (if any) useful work, while they ignore the useful people who actually get things done.
dopidopHN 2 days ago [-]
I used to think that.
And then I started working for a different kind of companies.
I screen out any structure with VC money.
It means I work for company that you never heard of, but that are profitable year after year.
How? They are very careful who gets in. And they make sure everyone is actually useful. Ration manager to worker is really really low.
Oh, and they build a product with the intends of selling it. Crazy, I know.
lnsru 2 days ago [-]
Playing office politics right is the most important thing at work. Doing real work is secondary. On other hand as a workhorse I punch occasionally every management’s darling in the face. They don‘t like me, but they know, that somebody must do technical heavy lifting. Of course, I am number one in the layoff’s list :-)
necovek 2 days ago [-]
You can never be sure of that (your conclusion). I had consistently disagreed with one of my managers, and ended up with the most positive performance review ever from them (I expected the opposite). It did help that I delivered on what I insisted on, of course :)
dopidopHN 2 days ago [-]
Can you work well in a team ?
Being a work horse is nice. But if you can’t work with others, that might be one you are on the layoff list
kypro 2 days ago [-]
I understand the negative perception around the importance of playing "office politics", but realistically when people are working as a team it's important people can be cooperative, and office politics is mostly just the exercise of being a cooperative member of the team.
99% of the time people are not getting promoted or retained simply because they're more friendly with people at the top, but because they're broadly respected, cooperative, and have some adequate level of competency.
The anti-social 10x developer who sits in the corner of the office grunting at people with his headphones on might spit out a lot of code, but does so while causing friction and problems within the wider team. They might think highly of themselves, but they fail to see how a company full of these people cannot operate efficiently.
Doing "real work" + making effort to be liked and cooperative with those around you is the right strategy. Over indexing on just being like or just doing real work isn't going to get you very far.
You said, "they don't like me" and if that's true I do think you should try harder to be liked. You can still raise objections to things and have your own input, but learning how to do that in a way that doesn't irritate people or derail the team is an important skill to have.
I empathise though because I struggle with this myself – I'm autistic so I find it hard to be likeable and communicate with nuance. I have lost jobs and promotions because of my inability to play well in teams in the past. Even today it's hard, but it's better now I at least try my best.
lnsru 2 days ago [-]
I think, you‘re mixing up normal group dynamics with toxic office politics. When someone very visibly starts licking a* of the superiors. And the superiors very visible promote that individual. Everyone else is somehow confused and alienated afterwards. Not my first toxic environment.
I funded my studies working as intern at the university, it was sometimes rough, but very competitive work environment. There were some intrigues regarding lab funding and permanent positions, but it was fine after all. What I found later working for smaller and bigger companies is too bizarre. The amount of people who are ready to slit colleague’s throats for 200€ pre-tax monthly salary increase is shocking high.
Working in a team is nice unless the team is not functional. One can bake much bigger cake in a team. But… it appears there are too many people who will take team’s result and present as their own. Or just ignore their work packages. Or managers not resistant to a* licking.
I have good relationship with colleagues on my level and with my direct manager. Production guys come to me with technical problems, because they’re afraid of other hardware developer. The thing is that it’s ok to be not liked by everybody. I don’t like uneducated general manager assigned to this company by the new owner. I don’t like the bozo explosion happening here. The production guys don’t like other hardware developer. My manager does not like interim HR manager. But it’s fine as long as it does not lead to psycho relationships and toxic behavior.
hegstal 1 days ago [-]
The anti-social 10x developer is more often than not the anti-social 1x developer that makes everyone else move at 0.1x or worse. Not that I directly blame them for it - there is far too much focus on the individual here. It's not so common they are bad people, but more that their own management doesn't provide them with the incentives to behave any other way. It's all about incentives. If the incentives are there, the parties involved will inevitably find a way to compromise in a way that works for them, but if the incentives are fundamentally misaligned, there is no way this gets resolved. The only option is to run.
larrled 1 days ago [-]
Toxic people and environments are not uncommon. It sounds like you’ve not experienced that too much, which is good. But there are sociopaths, liars, ladder climbers, manipulators, narcissists, and lots of other imperfect people who care more about their own title and compensation than the product or coworker harmony. As an autistic person, you might invest in learning how to spot such people to protect yourself.
nkrisc 2 days ago [-]
Useful can means many things. A scapegoat is useful, for example.
nubinetwork 2 days ago [-]
Not useful to the person being shit on for no fault of their own...
nkrisc 2 days ago [-]
Of course, but that’s my point. You may be useful, but that’s not always good.
red_admiral 2 days ago [-]
Unfortunately, no. The lack of correlation is probably a good measure for the dysfunctionality of an organization.
agumonkey 2 days ago [-]
What surprises me, is that software engineering is not immune to that. I thought a domain where applied math and precision is normal would lead to a place where speed and quality would be praised, but human dynamics overshadow all of this and you end up swimming in politics just as in most jobs (some manual labour jobs are more easily quantifiable and high performers are praised though).
chasd00 1 days ago [-]
"useful" and "valued" are kind of in the eye of the beholder. As long as my paycheck is on time and doesn't bounce then i feel perfectly valued per the deal I made with my employer. As for useful, i don't really care as long as i'm valued per my definition above.
simianwords 2 days ago [-]
Why does this not create an arbitrage opportunity to pick the useful ones who are not valued if you are a CEO or manager?
red_admiral 2 days ago [-]
I presume there is said opportunity, after all that's what company-hired "headhunters" are for.
But you also need to find people who are useful, undervalued (in the sense of the article, not in the sense of pay), and who are also willing to take the risk of jumping into a new environment even if that's uncomfortable at first. That means they need somehow to check that they'll be really valued at the new place, not just given a fancy title but no real decision-making involvement.
My guess is there's a positive correlation between useful-but-not-valued people and ones who are risk-averse and/or not the best social climbers, because the people who are both technically and socially brilliant or risk-taking are either valued already, or have already left your organisation.
simianwords 2 days ago [-]
If they are not risk taking they are not valuable.
red_admiral 1 days ago [-]
Depends how safety-critical the system is? If you're one of the few that can maintain an old aircraft, medical equipment, COBOL software for a nuclear power plant etc.- then you don't want risk-takers, you want steady hands that keep your system running.
benzayb 21 hours ago [-]
"All that are useful are valuable; but not all valuable are useful."
- Me.
I'd rather be useful than be valued but is totally useless. :D
i_love_retros 1 days ago [-]
Be useful enough and someone will always pay you.
Want to sell your soul and climb the corporate ladder so that you are "valued", go for it. You won't be so valued when the company gets bought and they don't need two vice presidents of blah.
autobodie 1 days ago [-]
> any drudge can do it if they’re prepared to sit in front of the computer for a few days
It still remains a fact that most working people don't have a few days to sit in front of a computer making art. Especially not uninterrupted.
1970-01-01 1 days ago [-]
The best advice is to keep applying for new opportunities continuously. At minimum, one per month. Never stop, even when things are going great. Your employer doesn't care about your career as much as you will.
2 days ago [-]
Havoc 1 days ago [-]
Also found being the person with historical knowledge and insight into details is quite dangerous. Means regardless of what’s going wrong you’re the first one being pulled in.
ednite 1 days ago [-]
Reading this thread, and having been around a while, I agree with most of what’s being said. If I could go back and coach my younger self through the mess of work life (promotions, burnout, undervaluation), I’d hand over three books that ended up being practical maps more than just philosophy.
Some valuable insights from thee books are:
Sun Tzu: The Art of War
Success often comes from preparation and positioning, not effort alone. Promotions tend to go to people who made themselves hard to ignore before opportunities opened up. Don’t fight every battle, pick the ones that matter.
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations
Focus on what you can control. Most stress comes from chasing recognition or reacting to things you can’t change.
Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Being technically strong isn’t enough. Careers are shaped by relationships. Listening, being likable, and helping others shine often creates more traction than pushing your own brilliance.
If I had started with these mindsets earlier, I probably would’ve saved a few years of frustration.
Good luck to everyone dealing with these issues.
bloop0 2 days ago [-]
Ah yes, the eternal quest for "feeling valued" at work — as if we're all in a corporate therapy session instead of just here to solve problems, get paid, and go home. American companies love inventing emotional debt as a substitute for job security. Maybe next time I get laid off, they’ll throw in a heartfelt Slack emoji to ease the blow.
dakiol 2 days ago [-]
If we can’t fantasize at something that’s supposed to take a third of our day to day, man, that’s depressing. I do understand that we need to be practical and do the job and get paid, but at some point one wakes up and wonders what the hell is one living for. Work is usually the last thing on my list, but I quickly wake up again and lick mister dollar’s ass because I need money for food. You can manage to twist the meaning of the situation and feel good with yourself, but we are slaves, modern slaves.
RyanOD 21 hours ago [-]
And just because you are valued, it doesn't mean you are useful.
notjes 1 days ago [-]
My experience is:
If you are good at something, you will do it for ever.
Be good - or get good - at things that you value.
einpoklum 2 days ago [-]
There is another kind of useful-but-not-valued, and that's the person who does things that management ignores, or finds not worthy of investment of time, but inoculate against future trouble or enable other work, or make it considerably easier, down the line.
If you engage in that kind of work, it's not just that you'll not be recognized/valued, but rather - be thought negatively of, for doing that.
k3vinw 2 days ago [-]
I’m curious. What kind of work would management ignore or look at negatively? If the work needs done, shouldn’t you be able to justify to management?
For example, by doing X this will improve our efficiency in performing Y by 80% and help us achieve our goal by reducing time wasted on Z.
VMtest 1 days ago [-]
can be hard to justify to the management because they don't value developer experience
einpoklum 1 days ago [-]
> "this will improve our efficiency in performing Y by 80%"
Even if we took your example: Suppose it will improve the efficiency based on other, additional, work that would take a long while, and it is not trivial to understand why.
> "help us achieve our goal by reducing time wasted on Z."
Manager may well tell you:
* "I never allocate time for Z, only for concrete project goals. And nobody ever complains about wasting time on Z."
* "I don't know if you guys waste time on Z or not, but I definitely know that if I approve your request you will be wasting time on it, rather than implementing a new feature or fixing a bug."
k3vinw 1 days ago [-]
What you’re describing is micro management and indicative of a toxic work environment.
hermannj314 1 days ago [-]
I guess the point is that the ~slaves~ paid laborers that built the pyramids were "useful", but the people that told them what shape to build were "valued"?
Tools are useful but ultimately can be thrown in the trash. Valuable things must be preserved and treated with respect. Strategic thinkers and VCs are treasured, but workers and ICs are dispensable.
This is just a lot of words to imply a moral hierarchy around social class.
Workaccount2 1 days ago [-]
I completely understand the allure of this line of thinking, but a better way to quantify this is people who are collecting a paycheck vs. people who are taking on risk.
I have noticed as I got older that many paycheck collectors are totally unaware of risk (as I was), likely because it plays no part in there day to day life. They are hyper-focused on the minority whose bets paid off and got obscenely wealthy, and totally unaware of the massive graveyard of those who incinerated their life savings. Hell it's not uncommon for a business to collapse because of honest mistakes made by the paycheck collectors, who upon the business closing just went and got another job, maybe after being on unemployment for a bit. For the risk takers, I can tell you that unemployment checks don't cover lost equity.
The rub here is that the paycheck collectors also highly value the "good" risk takers. Most people, given the opportunity, would put their money into a fund managed by someone with an excellent track record.
meepmorp 1 days ago [-]
> I guess the point is that the slaves that built the pyramids were "useful"
just to nitpick - the consensus among historians now is that the pyramids were built by paid laborers, not slaves
hermannj314 1 days ago [-]
I appreciate this correction.
alganet 2 days ago [-]
Valued = useful + hard to find.
The more rare you are, the more you are valued. You still have to be useful to be valuable though.
In order to acquire those rare skills, an ungodly amount of work is often required. It is also a huge variable. A rare skill today can become useless tomorrow.
Also, beware of indispensable people. "This company needs me" can have all sorts of causes. Maybe you didn't documented things right, maybe you just have a long history with them. It doesn't mean being rare. Being rare is feeling "this skill I have could be of use to any similar company and few people know it".
The skill could be anything. Perfect pitch, excelent document writing, de-escalation, low-level bit shaving.
ndand 2 days ago [-]
> Valued = useful + hard to find.
I agree, but I think it slightly differently,
Valued = useful + hard to replace.
How difficult is to be replaced by some other human or a machine.
suyash 2 days ago [-]
I'll add one more to this, "Pleasant personality". If you have are difficult to be with, you will be miserable and so will others around you, leaving you with very little or no allies. So new formula:
Valued = Useful + hard to find + easy to work with
trey34627 1 days ago [-]
Guessing most women fall into the useful category then, as they’re kept out of conversations a lot.
noslenwerdna 1 days ago [-]
I feel like everyone is going to think they are useful. Not sure how meaningful this is.
jstummbillig 1 days ago [-]
From the perspective of an employer, this is mostly nonsense.
> But you are seen primarily as a gap-filler
You are, if the org works, seen as a person fulfilling an important enough function (because... otherwise you would not be hired) and if you then do that, that is fantastic. When anything doesn't work, that sucks, and that is something that every employer understands.
However if you are not okay with the role that you are occupying in that apparatus, or no longer okay, that's not on your employer (unless, of course, you have been mislead about your role or trajectory). Some people are looking to do a specific thing for a long time and getting really good at that, and it makes me sad to see when people try to cast shadow on that. I certainly wouldn't, but I would caution against projecting your own value judgements onto other people. It says more about how you look at the world, and what kind of place you would create, than it says about the company you work for.
pym4n 1 days ago [-]
Great writing, makes perfect sense!
calrain 2 days ago [-]
Do your job and you will always be useful, rarely valued.
0x20cowboy 1 days ago [-]
Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
zeroonetwothree 1 days ago [-]
I don’t feel like this post has any cohesive thesis. It seems to have been written mainly to brag.
jongjong 2 days ago [-]
What I hate about office politics is that it feels like all the planets have to align to get what you want. It's not reliable.
I'm way too clumsy and unpredictable for this 'one shot to make an impression' approach. During critical times, I tend to put forward my worst self, I can't help it. I tend to pathologically undersell myself and my work. Like my brain wants me to do everything on hard mode, just for entertainment value and so that I have stuff to talk/complain about. It's like I self-sabotage to ensure that my success rate stays below 10%.
When bad stuff happens, I don't even feel anything anymore. I expect failure. Though I still feel really great in those rare times when good stuff happens.
api 2 days ago [-]
A lot of human status is based on primate signaling, not merit or usefulness, nor kindness or trustworthiness. It’s based in the brain stem, not the neocortex.
I have met useless, dumb or insane, but charismatic people who can instantly be in charge of any room they walk into. It is not rational. It’s monkey stuff. One of them is currently the President of the USA, and truth be told I think most presidents have these qualities to varying degrees. (The current one is just a very pure example.)
That being said, it doesn’t always work. It tends to work best on people who are inexperienced or who have some emotional need for a parent figure. But that's a lot of people.
29athrowaway 23 hours ago [-]
Being productive doesn't mean your skills are scarce or you have leverage.
jbverschoor 1 days ago [-]
perceived usefulness becomes value
w10-1 1 days ago [-]
Ouch!
revskill 1 days ago [-]
No, it depends who's valuing you.
m3kw9 1 days ago [-]
It’s just your measure of value va theirs is different.
wat10000 1 days ago [-]
I thought this would be about what you actually do versus what you're perceived as doing.
That's how I'd interpret these words. "Useful" means you do something that's beneficial to the company (or at least your management). "Valued" means that the company (or at least your management) believes you do something that's beneficial to them. In a well-run company, these match well. In many companies, they don't.
Being valued is a big part of what drives advancement. If you're seen as beneficial then the company (or management) will usually try to keep you, and offer you opportunities to expand that benefit. If management sees and understands what you do, then being useful can suffice here. Otherwise, the gap between these things means you need to be political and ensure that your usefulness is seen and understood.
The article seems to be talking about leverage, collaboration, and reach. Your usefulness on your own is limited. Beyond a certain point, the only way to become more useful is to start acting as a multiplier to other people's efforts. That's what it describes as "valued," but that really doesn't seem like the right word at all.
I'd put it like this: success on the job depends on how you're seen, not just what you do. Be mindful of how those are connected at your particular position. And your impact, both in terms of practical outcomes and visibility, can only grow so much on your own. If you want to go beyond that, you need to work with others and multiply their work.
gxs 1 days ago [-]
I have tools in my garage that are quite useful - I’ll likely end up selling some of them for cheap because while they are fine tools, they aren’t especially…valuable to me
CaffeineLD50 1 days ago [-]
The use of passive voice and vagueness hides the actors involved: namely management.
But they always have a spreadsheet where they calculate how they can convert your former salary into their bonus.
"Never underestimate (management) greed" - to paraphrase Scarface.
77pt77 1 days ago [-]
If you are useful but not valued all that creates is extreme resentment.
Competence, especially when objective and irrefutable but not accompanied by what are assumed to be mandatory associated traits (see halo effect) is seen as an affront to nature and creates a very intense sense of dissonance and injustice that prompts corrective measures, usually in the form of scapegoating.
Simulacra 2 days ago [-]
Those are interchangeable.
CapitalTntcls 1 days ago [-]
At the end of the day, as an engineer, you will always be as replaceable as any factory worker. If the market wants cheaper worker, they will just layoff a bunch and hire again with lower salaries.
There is life outside your job, you only live once.
temp0826 1 days ago [-]
value = usefulness / wages
ktallett 2 days ago [-]
Everyone can provide value to the world if we accept them for who they are, and what they love and can offer. The issue lies when we, as a society, decides what is valuable and what isn't.
dopidopHN 2 days ago [-]
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ktallett 2 days ago [-]
I would disagree. They maybe don't teach in the way that would be ideal for each individual student (because that isn't possible when classes are in the 10's of students), and some of course are fundamentally terrible as is the same in every single profession, however they provide lots of other value than just teaching. They provide comfort and care and security for those children who have a poor home life. Even if they don't teach the child more than 40 % of what they should teach, what they offer in other ways is more valuable.
dopidopHN 1 days ago [-]
Sorry, I was being facetious and it does not show in writing.
I respect teacher work deeply and think they should be vastly more compensated than they are.
The fact that it you are a teacher it might be complex to buy a house and have kids is mind boggling.
I agree with your comment.
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DiscourseFan 2 days ago [-]
It takes some guts to be in management, but being a good worker-bee will only get you so far. You have to know how to work with others, you have to be able to make critical decisions at the right moment. Not everyone has the talent for it. And if you don't have it, you don't have it. Will you, as this author has described, find a comfortable position in life, be able to afford whatever you need? Absolutely. And you'll never have to be responsible for impactful decisions; you'll never have to fire anyone.
riehwvfbk 2 days ago [-]
> Will you, as this author has described, find a comfortable position in life, be able to afford whatever you need? Absolutely.
Only when the times are good, as many of us had to learn the hard way.
When times are tough and there aren't enough resources to go around - there is no substitute for being the one allocating the resources, or at least close to them.
apwell23 1 days ago [-]
not everyone has the skills to suck up to the person allocating resources
apwell23 2 days ago [-]
> It takes some guts to be in management
> And if you don't have it, you don't have it.
hope this is parody
DiscourseFan 1 days ago [-]
Not everyone is a good manager either
Rendered at 00:48:09 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
If anything, in a business relationship, I think it's important to recognize that nearly everyone is just "useful". It may be the case that people think you'll be more useful in an expanded role, and thus will give you advancement opportunities. But even then, the business environment may change, and your skills may not longer be highly prioritized. Just look at lots of the recent tech layoffs that have snared well-respected, senior technologists. Apparently they were "valued", until they weren't.
That's an entirely different set of metrics than determining "value". Being valuable means being a trusted strategic voice to some portion of the leadership, and being recognized for contributions that go beyond (horizontally or diagonally) the employee's job description. In many cases, this value = trust relationship is evidenced by how frequently senior managers bring former employees with them when joining new firms, or how small & tight knit the community is for specialty roles/functions.
Lots of fresh grads and junior staff focus 99% on being useful, but career advancement beyond the first one or two promotions depends MUCH more on being valued.
Yeah. I've seen a lot of ICs get stuck at the "senior developer" level rather than progressing to team lead, staff/principal eng, etc because they were too focused on being useful, by cranking through Jira tickets and features, rather than thinking strategic and higher level. This is a totally fine career choice, but there's only so far that "coding better and faster" can take you.
The counterintuitive part is increasing your valuableness often reduces your usefulness. As a mundane example, in early stage startups there may be one engineer who handles production deployments, schema migrations, and on-call duties. This is extremely useful! For this engineer to increase their value, however, they'll want to automate production deployments, teach others how to run schema migrations, and set up on-call alerting and schedules. By doing this, they become less useful, since others can now do their work, but more valuable, since they've been able to delegate responsibilities.
It really doesn't matter how much strategic thinking you do if nobody cares.
An engineer who does their job so well that they reduce everyone's workload by automating things and showing others how to do some of their tasks doesn't become less useful; in fact just the opposite, since presumably they will continue to need to do this as the landscape changes and not everybody will have their advanced knowledge of how to efficiently organize things at a high level.
> Being useful means that you are good at getting things done in a specific area, so that people above you can delegate that completely. You are reliable, efficient, maybe even indispensable in the short term. But you are seen primarily as a gap-filler, someone who delivers on tasks that have to be done but are not necessarily a core component of the company strategy.
I take this to mean "usefulness" is: you have a tactical role in the company, where you are able to perform necessary tasks. If you can perform them with little supervision, you are very useful.
However, "value" is eliminating those gaps entirely. Instead of being the on-call person who fixes every issue, which is undeniably useful, you fix the root causes so those issues don't happen. This does make you less useful, by definition, because fewer on-call issues means there's fewer reasons to keep you around. But assuming you also do an ok job of communicating what you've done, and your bosses aren't totally clueless, people will recognize this as valuable. The fact that you were able to identify a systemic issue and address it is what makes you valuable, and it will get you invited into broader technically strategic discussions. In theory, at least.
Again these are just my interpretation of useful vs valuable as far as the article's definition. I don't agree with the terms in a broader sense.
Who I have I seen that is more valued? H1B hires (QA > SW developer) and middle management. Even break room legal notices prove the former.
“People don’t remember who went to grab drinks on a Tuesday, but they’ll remember who helped them close a million dollar deal and get a huge bonus”
Give your coworkers superpowers and opportunities will flow.
Outside of sales and senior leadership I don't agree with this statement. Maybe it is just because I've reached a time in my life where I could care less about the hustle and just want a job where it can solve interesting problems for no more than 8 hours a day. And then get home to my family.
For ladder climbers sure, but at some point relationships are more important than dollars. (As long as you have a enough to live of course).
And if you are struggling to make ends meet and you get a pat on a back for deal support, that feels more exploitive than anything else. Yay, I helped make someone else money.
Being a highly productive, easy to work with, solution oriented coworker is a super power in it's own right.
Sure. Who do you have a better relationship with: That engineer who drops everything they're doing to come help you with a gnarly bug when asked, or the dude who's always at happy hour but nowhere to be seen when you need something?
On the other end, there can be helpful but quiet people who makes me feel like I invaded their space when I ask a question.
Closing that million dollar deal as a sprint might be memorable, but being the go-to configurator for Azure cloud services isn't, and the difference between heroic level systems management and mediocre button clicker requires hard squinting if you're non-technical. Hell, I'm technical and would struggle to tell the difference just because IT isn't usually my domain.
And if the person you're working with has no appreciation of what an average performance is, any mistake will be seen as a defect even if what you're doing is otherwise heroic.
Meanwhile, I still do remeber the coworkers I viewed as helpful, or even just generous and friendly.
A sales person that consistently hits quota is useful. A rainmaker that keeps bringing in million dollar deals is valuable.
First, what you are describing in this comment sounds very much to me like following the adage "be loyal to people, not companies", and to that I totally agree. It's definitely critical in your career to build trust and relationships with folks you work with, and be dependable.
But for an example of why I think this "useful" vs. "valued" framing is wrong, I can think of a colleague at a previous company who I think was great at her role - she was a relatively junior (i.e. a couple years of experience) front end developer. She was responsive, implemented features well, and always demoed her work well and was extremely prepared. People also loved working with her - she was friendly, had very little ego, and had an almost disarming way of interacting with folks that would instantly defuse tensions on her team. I would work with her again in a heartbeat, and she was a great addition to her team.
At the same time, after working with her a while it became clear that her developer skills were limited. She was a great taskmaster, but the didn't have a great "systems-wide" way of thinking. She would implement features as requested, but when she would give demos I remember there were a bunch of times that there were semi-obvious questions ("Wait, how would the user get to screen A if they click button B first?") that she didn't bring up beforehand and did't consider in her implementations. I could trust her to implement individual components and screens, but I couldn't really say "Here's a description of the user problem, and the general direction we want to go in - how would you solve this?"
So if you asked me, I would say this person was a very valued person on her team. In her role, I think she was great. But I also don't think I'd expect her to perform well if she was asked to go in more "strategic and ambitious directions", as taken from the article.
I think this is a better framing because it explains some behaviours that are otherwise baffling: if I'm hurting for cash, I'm going to stop adding to my savings before I cancel all my insurance, even if the expected rate of return is higher.
For example, when I look through the pattern of folks in my LinkedIn network who have been hit hard by layoffs, it's clear to me that a lot of roles were "luxuries" or "impulse buys" during the ZIRP era, and so many of those roles have vanished over the past 2 years or so.
I've always tried to avoid working for cost centers, where the business's goal is to reduce cost as much as possible while continuing to provide the necessary utility (like on-premise IT). Cost centers are most prone to offshoring and automation; and this is where the "AI threat" is most likely to materialize.
But if your business unit is viewed as an investment center (like an R&D center), you're part of a strategic asset and you're also (by proxy) viewed as an investment. Luxury and impulse buys also happen here a lot more often.
You are actually agreeing with the author here. Rephrase that to "Apparently they were useful, until they weren't"
They weren't valued.
I think the author is apt in their observation.
See, I think it's more honest to say that 99% of employees are not valued at all, in that "the company" or top management actually care about what you think because you think it. People are kept around as long as the person 1-2 levels above them in management believe they have a positive short-term ROI, and everyone will be unceremoniously let go nearly instantly the moment they think they don't need you, whether you have just not distinguished yourself, or just basically at random when revenue misses dictate general cutbacks.
The author of the piece seems to place great personal significance specifically on his ideas mattering to the execs, but I think that may not be such an important thing to every personality type. I do mildly like being part of some 'strategic' conversations, but it's honestly more because I don't want the tech team to be blindsided by an impossible product requirement, and because I feel like I am good at identifying low-hanging fruit. But in terms of whether the company pursues one strategy or another at the highest level, that is hard, and you have to feel pretty bad when you make a bad bet. I don't think I need that at all to be happy.
I was using "valued" in scare quotes that sentence you quoted - yes, I agree, the literal meaning of what I was saying is that they were useful until they weren't.
But, thus, I think it's important to understand that, at least from a business perspective, they were never "valued", and so I don't think it's helpful to think of things in those terms - again, I think that term implies a, well, value judgement that is inappropriate in the context.
By analogy, what I'm trying to say is similar to the difference between using the words "team" and "family" in a business context. I think using team is fine - teams want to win, and they cut people all the time if they don't have the right skills to help them win. Using the word "family" is simply bullshit, and it's just manipulation by business owners to try to get more work out of employees.
So my advice is to not ever think of yourself as "valued" in business. Remember that you are always just useful depending on the context of your role, your skills, and the current business environment.
Key differentiator in all these cases was bad or missing communication.
Do good stuff and make sure enough people notice. If you don’t self-market yourself, others who are less useful to the company for sure will.
I think the distinction the author is really getting at is whether the business views you as fungible.
My couch is useful and provides value. It would be hard to relax in my living room without it. But if I had to pack up and move across the country, I'd probably ditch the couch and buy a new one when I got there. It's useful and valuable, but also replaceable.
I don't play it much these days, so my bass guitar arguably isn't very useful or valuable. But I've had it 20 years and have a lot of important memories attached to it. If I have to move, I'm not selling it and buying a new one.
Maybe another way to state it is whether you have more value to the company than your replacement cost.
Sort of like holding people who were successful working on the OS from a decade ago, and not letting them work on the current OS.
The author actually realizes this but did not nail this idea to the church door as part of his manifesto.
The first part is not being 'valued'; this is being a 'useful strategically'.The second part - "opportunities to grow and contribute in ways that are meaningful to you and the business." - that is being 'valued strategically'
The first is not being 'useful'; this is being a 'useful tactically'.The second part, "Take care of that and don’t screw up” is your mission, and the fewer headaches you create for your leadership chain, the bigger the rewards." is being 'valued tactically'.
So, the theory is every member of staff is dropped BOTH a 'useful' and 'valued' bucket for tactical work and for strategic work.
ie: - one can be useful or not useful for strategic or tactical work or both - one can be valued or not valued for strategic or tactical work or both
A couple of counterpoints:
1. You can,unfortunately, be useful strategically and not be valued. Think about the hachet man every leader of a large organization has - the guy who does the layoffs. That slot is useful strategically but can be filled by almost anyone - it is not valued by the org.
2. You can, fortunately, be useful tactically, useless strategically, and be be very very valued in an organization. Best examples of this are folks who are very very good at running operations. Think about a good truck dispatcher, or a 911 operator or an air traffic controller. 90% of their job is effective tactical execution - dealing with this emerging situation right now effectively and efficiently. That is highly valuable to organizations.
Also note that every org needs strategy people and tactical people for long and short term.
One is not better than the other. They are just different.
And there are lots of very highly paid tactical roles, sometimes better paid, that are more challenging and more interesting than any strategy role.
These tend to be "do this or fix this thing right now efficiently and effectively" jobs.
For example, almost any practicing medial role is a tactical one - ER doctor (fix this sick person right now) or controllers for real time stuff - concert and live TV producers (make this thing look good right now), air traffic controllers (keep these planes safe right now) etc etc.
So, net net, pick you spot - tactical vs strategic or both, useful vs. valuable or both - get good at it and then may the odds always be in your favor.
Some businesses structure this intentionally, to avoid the upward progression of salaries, and other businesses just arnt churning through projects and clients quick enough to expand to fit the upward momentum of their talent.
Recognizing the real constraints on your value to a business model is important to not get stuck in the backwash of business value.
The notion of being “useful” is ironically useless. The only real measure is your pay: if the company pays you well, they consider you important. If you think you’re useful but your compensation doesn’t reflect that, you’re being exploited - and all that talk of “belonging” and “usefulness” is just corporate mind games to keep you emotionally captive.
Beyond that, in my experience, when trying to get a bigger role, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Some managers are not useful or just as overworked as we are, so they can't take the step back and properly evaluate who is ready for more responsibility. We have to advocate for ourselves.
The inherit friction means that some workers will sometimes be overworked and/or underpaid, but workers do not remain in overworked/underpaid situations for long. Given the real-world constraints, the exact right number of people are in that situation, not "too many".
> the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly.
If the workers show up, you know you are paying them properly. That's not the issue here.
Trouble is, at some point you run out of things to buy. Those who continue to seek more money beyond that do so because they are able to leverage it to increase their social value. — But, in the case of the person in article, they were still failing to establish social value even with more money than they knew what to do with. Even more money than that wouldn't have helped them. They needed to find a new situation that was able to allow them to find the social value they were after.
I think this is very hard to measure, particularly from our outside perspective. I understand it may be more of a worldview axiom than a fact, and will get a chorus of nods in a group conversation, but I think it should be tested more like a fact than an axiom.
Was your primary family spent being valued and appreciated? Then you'll select for that and when people start to not value you, you'll intervene earlier to correct for it and you'll have the skills to do that.
Did your parents respect your boundaries growing up? Were you able to erect strong boundaries and have people listen to you when they over stepped, or were you constantly put down and your wishes ignored? A lack of skills in erecting proper boundaries and then maintaining them by being in the goldilocks zone of not too soft and too hard can lead to issues in the workplace and personal life.
First step is bringing this in to awareness so you can look back with hindsight, next step (the hardest) is mid-sight, you know you are doing or not the doing the thing you need to do but can't do it or don't know how. There there is foresight, hey I normally do this thing that's not good for me here, I had better do the thing I need to do to keep this situation positive.
Keep this mantra in mind: You are the only in charge of you and your emotions, no one makes you do anything, and you will protect yourself.
Awareness + skills = ability. Psychotherapy (not counselling) is what you need to look out for. Combine that with Transactional Analysis and it makes you very very effective.
It's both very useful to get out of this pit, and also sad.. because our lives are not supposed to be fully transactional. We prefer to have a group with who we share more than notarial duties.
Thanks for articulating this so clearly.
If you lack the power to implement them they mean nothing.
Children can try and set the boundaries they want, but parents, family and society in general can just laugh and ignore them.
People who don't believe they deserve to have their boundaries respected also don't tend to do things that will garner them the power that enables them to do so.
The amount of power we have is not at all fixed. It can be changed by our choices and is meaningful mostly relative to the power of the people around us, and we also have a lot of choice around who those people are.
In short, people who want their boundaries respected tend to work to avoid getting into situations where they aren't able to enforce them.
Navigating conflict is hard.
Many people are conflict avoiders, and they struggle to set boundaries. People pleasers or panderers in particular often cost themselves a lot to avoid conflict.
What convinced you? Any particularly compelling resources re: the evidence and methodology for these theories?
Is this research based or one of the things you believe to be true?
My therapist said one sentence to me that stuck „… you are marrying your parents“
Like you seek a partner that has similarities to your mother or father. I see that very often with friends.
I enjoy the work. I enjoy solving specific problems in tech.
I do not enjoy the "business" of tech and have no interest in any of it.
I definitely have inadequate drive to grow a business and make others wealthy, even if I get a few crumbs.
For me, contracting is the perfect match. I don't need to get involved in your politics, I just need to eat jira tickets. Realiably and well. When there are none to eat, I can go do my own things.
I would need to care a LOT more about the business and dollars to excel at it, and lately I lean in the opposite direction. I see nothing wrong with simply being comfortable and useful. We have it good that we can make this choice.
$0.02 :)
1: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
Great timing, though, I've been in need of a new read and I'm a Ricky Gervais fan. Thanks!
Contrast this to working for an organization. Again I offer my opinion on how it might be done and alternatives that may be cheaper and/or better which results in the same poor choices. Except now I'm stuck supporting that turd of a decision with my own personal unpaid exempt status overtime.
No need to feel apologetic about being smart.
On the plus side I spent a lot of time raising my son in his formative years - time for which I'm thankful. If I had stayed working at start-ups I would have missed that which I would have truly regretted.
Also the start-ups in SV became obsessed with Social Media which IMO is a total waste of electrons so I lost interest.
Between an employee and employer, enter ideology: I do this because I love it/love helping clients/ working communally to improve the business. Or competition: my bonus is 50 percent of my salary and we're stack-ranked. Or fear: oh my god, I got only Meets Expectations in my review. Will my pay be flat?
And contractors get to not have constant meetings.
(and middling performers a lot more)
I don’t think anyone (excluding the literally deranged) spends their day trying to maximize the number of lies directed at employees.
Like, contributing a sense of fun? Being cheerful?
Why? Because a bit of autism tends to make you good at your job but allistic people can always seemingly tell you're "off", no matter how well you (try and) mask.
And ultimately career progression is a social game. It's not about being good at your job. It's about whether people like you. Sure there are some outliers who get far on technical ability but they succeed in spite of this not because of it.
So when you say you don't enjoy the "business" of tech, it means you've reached your ceiling where it requires influencing other people as direct reports, as a tech leader or both.
If you're in this boat, and a lot of tech people are IME, then my advice is to make your bag while you can because you will be the first to be discarded and you will suffer at the dark, ugly side of tech, which is ageism.
Avoiding ageism is largely a social exercise. If the leadership at your company likes you, they'll keep you. If they don't, they won't. You'll find yourself randomly picked on a round of layoffs sooner or later.
I keep waiting for this shoe to drop. It hasn't yet. Now the pendulum has swung far enough that I want to preserve my time more than I want to stack more bricks. Amusingly, it's a source of tension with my wife who plans to work for another 15 years and will not be excited to see me out playing without her. (her people live into 100 on the regular. My people die in their 40s and 50s with alarming frequency -- our horizon perspectives are very different :D )
All good problems. If I lose all my tech jobs tomorrow, I will be grateful for the run and not be going hungry. I half expect I'd be relieved.
its interesting how there are so many ways to be productive and compensated in this industry doing the same kind of work, but each gatekeeper is so strongly opinionated
like there is this perception that even just a 10 year developer is supposed to be this super soldier doing continual growth - more than just keeping up with frameworks but doing all these advanced other things - as opposed to simply doing the same job for 10 years. I like how the industry has matured for people with less years of experience to be compensated so highly, so I just keep truncating my resume to being at 8-10 years of experience, and plan on doing that forever.
You find out pretty quick: suddenly on PIP, or get bullied thereafter because you phrased something slightly off in a Jira comment. If I can get paid and treated OK, I see that as good.
Don't put stock in business relationships. Try to have good ones but put stock in ... assets, family, health, etc.
Now I have seen valued people but they are rare. And if push come to shove I'm sure that bond could break.
If this is your mentality, is it any wonder you aren't valued?
People post things like this and I'm not sure they have any emotional intelligence whatsoever. Sure, your work/job doesn't have to be your entire life. But what about a little pride in what you're doing? Working with smart people towards a goal to do something useful?
If your mentality is "just show up for work, do what they ask and go home" then it should be no surprise you're at the top of the list to get laid off. I wouldn't want to work with a person who "puts no stock in business relationships".
Conversely, if you think that devoting yourself to work will put you at the bottom of the list to get laid off, you are in for a big surprise eventually.
But more likely people who do bare minimum at work and always wait for someone else to ask else they just leave for home are first one to go. And it is happening to "minimal interest in work" folks in my team as I type this.
It is not even about having them do work beyond normal hours. But just checking in normal hours if something need be done while they have spare cycle.
I guess it is all fine, employee made their choice and management theirs.
Any transaction becomes increasingly zero-sum as you get to either end of the value proposition difference between the two parties. The non-zero area is in the middle.
He has this mentality because he has never been valued, not the other way around.
At my last job I was the only developer who knew bash and Linux. I handled everything until a new CTO came and destroyed the servers with his lack of technical knowledge.
I was critically useful to the company until I broke down due to the daily harassment. I became valued the instant I gave my two weeks notice, but I still told them to go to hell.
Where or how so you find such jobs/companies? Whenever I interview for non faang companies I’ve been asked things like the cap theorem, concurrency issues, microservice patterns, ddd, and of course on top of that the live coding and systems design interviews.
For once, I’d like to join a company in which I seem to bring something only I know.
"If you want to know who truly values you, look for the people who would not be able to replace you with someone else."
That usually has us pointing to friends and family, with the odd exception.
Ask them all to take a month off and see which has greater impact and over which timescales.
Usefulness and value have different dimensions that can be orthogonal or even in opposition to one another. Many of us have worked in the presence of brilliant assholes and had to ponder that question.
There are lots of problems with the way universities are set up, but, from the point of view of a faculty member and, I suspect, also that of a student, "more leadership oversight" would solve none of them. (Unless it was accompanied by a change of university leadership from those who think of a university primarily as a business, to those who think of a university primarily as a university. I have only spent a long time at one university, so it is possible that this problem is peculiar to my university, but my impression from talking to my colleagues is that it is not.)
While faculty basically no matter how useless can never be fired.
"can't be replaced" has two opposing meanings in your post.
This describes the situation of tenured faculty (who are definitely who I had in mind when I referred to splashy big names), but universities have long been moving to a model with as few tenured or tenurable faculty as possible, where some instructors are full time but non-tenure-track, and others are part time (and so, for example, don't have to be paid benefits). At my university these are called lecturers and adjuncts, but other names exist. Both jobs involve renewable contracts (of different lengths), so they need not even be fired, just not have their contracts renewed.
if you bring even a tiny bit of your spunk, enthusiasm and passion to work you;d be labeled a problem immediately.
They want apathetic mindless drones.
If you were trying to contact me privately for some reason, I can provide a working email if you give me a brief idea of what you wanted to discuss in a comment.
Two years later and I've about burned through all my savings looking for any job at all. Seems like current market has decided my skills and connections are not enough. Fixing to just uber or something next month out of desperation. I used to make six figures.
Turns out I decided to quit at the absolute worst time. I may not have been valued socially at the last gig but I felt somewhat useful. Nowadays enough time has passed and I no longer feel valued nor useful. The distinction fails to make any difference when the threat of losing it all constantly looms over you.
If I could I would go back in time and berate my self to keep that job at all costs and remain valueless, instead of insist grass is greener for some nebulous quality of "valued". Some things like health insurance are just more important than some intangible ideas of being valued or not by higher ups I won't really understand.
To other readers: don't quit your job until you have a new source of income locked in!
I blame my self for it, for not having the insight. Consequences were severe
Kept up my certs and all, still do tech stuff all them time, think I'll have a job even if it's minimum wage and underemployment at some point
By definition risks don't always go your way.
To quote Don Draper, “that’s what the money is for!” Find your meaning or value somewhere else not in your job and it will both be longer lasting and likely much deeper.
I like my hobbies, just I can't pretend to enjoy them all day when my current lifestyle has been unsustainable for so long. It was easier start of the job drought and I could do whatever I wanted and it felt nice, picked up some (unmarketable but fun) skills. Now it's all caught up to me.
"At least the gig economy is an option" is a thought that appeared in my head recently
One of the bad things about heiring is that it always seems that it's much easier to get a job if you have a job.
As a warning to others, get a new job before you quit your old one.
You might be valued because you are many things. You might not be valued because of many things. If you are able to be useful and valued, while also being fulfilled and happy personally and professionally -- that's great.
But, there is normally not a direct and clear situation like this in organizations. If there is, enjoy it while you have it. Normally, it's not as direct and clear to assess and understand. You are also part of this equation. The dynamics in an organization are normally not consistent.
Dynamics in organizations can shift quickly. Culture can also mean you could be doing all you can but the situation is no longer good for you for a variety of reasons or good for the organization.
Informed re-evaluation of your own value in your situation, at reasonable points, is vital. You may be not as great as you think you are, you might not be able to feel valued or useful in a changed or toxic environment. You may not care about that stuff. The organization may be incapable of providing any of that validation but, ultimately, it's up to you to decide what you are able to live with and why. How the organization provides whatever for you to contemplate is part of the calculation that must rest on your shoulders -- and that effort is ongoing and important.
- Not Useful, Not Valued: Get good or change jobs/industries.
- Not Useful, Valued: talks a good game (or is doing useful stuff that is not apparent)
-Useful, Not Valued: Could be useful at non-strategic stuff, or does good work without self-marketing, or has bad management and needs to leave.
- Useful, Valued: Ideal situation.
The not valued column is let go first via the fact that the value function is what decides if their managers care or not
I suspect who is laid off first is more to do with the lifecycle of the company actually, having been in high/low/negative growth environments myself.
I have found in negative growth environments, managers tend to get pretty sober about who is actually useful not just valued, and cut accordingly. Negative growth environments is also when more cuts happen, with generally a worse job hunting environment if you are cut.
But in frivolous times, yes, I've seen plenty of useful people get cut.. but they always bounce back better anyway.
I kinda feel called out. My work should speak for itself. It often does, but I will always forget it when it comes time to speak of myself nicely.
I simply do not care to self-promote. It feels vain and vanity is one of the most useless things possible to me. Donald Trump is about 98% vanity, if you want to see what vanity is.
Not being able to actually cite the things I’ve done to someone who already knows what those things are has cost me several promotions, though. I can do the work, I can forecast needs, be ready for them, and solve them before they arrive, but because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me.
Now that I’ve typed all that out, I am remembering just how many times this has happened, and now twenty minutes into the week and I am 100% misanthropic. People suck.
I shudder at the thought of becoming one of those gobshites that asks senior management questions in townhalls like "How do you stay so grounded with all the awesome responsibility you are dealing with?"
There a few things that motivated me to start self publicising a bit more:
1) A Chris Williamson podcast where he said "Shy bairns get nowt" and also "Somewhere there is someone with half your talent and twice your confidence earning 10x your salary."
2) I email all my senior stakeholders (not just my line manager) details of the major projects I am working on. I try and frame this as an "FYI" and an offer for them to add extra context or re-align my priorities.
3) You can try this approach as well: https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/
Point is these things can yield result but it is neither guaranteed nor welcome so many times. Also praising "leadership" is race to bottom, there are always bigger suck ups pushing themselves.
I don't need 10x my salary, I just want to feel valued by my team. I have never felt that in my entire life, even though team members often mention that I save their bacon repeatedly in team meetings with supervisors. it's like no one hears it.
unless i change who i am as a person i will never be valued at work. it's just that simple. I won't play the vanity game solely for money. I won't do anything solely for money. I just want to feel valued and I don't think that is possible for me. I'm just not wired to feel that. So fuck me I guess. "you don't fit the mold kid, so you can go fly a kite"
For me, the motivation to move out of my comfort zone and become more "braggy" was to provide a better standard of living for my family. And also my ego - getting annoyed at seeing less talented people do better.
> because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me
You need to re-frame this problem, so it's not about "self-promotion", and instead is about proactively forecasting the needs (as you put it) of your manager, not just the technical system you're managing.
If you view it as part of your job to document (not promote, just document) the work you've done, it's trivial to collect those links into a doc at the end of the promotion cycle, hand it to your manager and collect a promotion. Make sure that you're communicating throughout the cycle that you're expecting a promotion in your 1:1's and ask if you're on track towards that goal / if there's anything un-discussed you'd need to do to get there.
It's critical to understand that this is not vanity, it's part of your job (if you want a promotion, that is). I hope this is helpful!
I have no idea what managers do, and I can't ever get an answer when I ask what managers do. "oh, all kinds of stuff." gosh, thanks. it's so clear, now.
If you want a promotion, your manager needs to be able to explain / provide evidence to their manager (and so on, all the way to the board in theory) as to why you deserve a higher salary.
If you are doing the right work, are able to provide them with an artifact (brag sheet / promotion packet) that concisely outlines the value provided, and consistently provide the signal that you'd be dissatisfied (i.e. potentially leave) without a promotion, you'll get a promotion. It's within your power to remove the only remaining obstacle for them by providing the packet, which is 80% of their work in securing you a promotion.
There are almost always more urgent issues for a manager to address than a high-performing employee who is quietly upset about not getting a promotion. By stepping up and helping them do this small part of their job, you're demonstrating empathy by solving an important but non-urgent problem for them. They will be grateful.
Leaders primary concern is for those under them.
Managers primary concern is for those above them.
Advice would be to try to find a job or role doing something you’re interested it.
A lot of the subject matter of my work is not that interesting to me, and the politics and lack of any sort of vision or leadership at most organizations these days makes project work sometimes stressful. But (maybe as a survival mechanism?) I’ve found that focusing on improving how I do my work and taking pride in my output (even if no one else notices) is a way for me to have some control over my work day.
This way it’s about me and I’m not looking for external validation (which isn’t coming for a myriad of reasons that would be exhausting to list here).
My point is that we all (most of us anyway) have to work so my theory is that it’s best to try to find some balance of interesting, pays ok and you’re good enough at it that you can find some meaning in your work.
To me, work avoidance sounds mentally draining.
Procrastination isn't an active thing, it just happens. If that doesn't make sense to you that probably means you don't have that particular issue.
1. Big tasks are stressful because, well, they're big. So I break them down in to components and chip away every day at them so that I am not overwhelmed. I call this taking care of my future self.
2. I love to have days where I get to wake up and do whatever I want to do that day. But I can't enjoy that freedom with bad conscious tasks hanging over my head, so I work my ass off to have those days. For example, my goal for the ENTIRE summer was to spread a yard of mulch, re-build two firewood racks, re-stack and move the logs that are in different areas to keep them seasoning, split and stack a cord of wood for next winter, lay posts for a fruit tree espalier, rebuild shed doors, cut back the wood line 10 feet. These are all already done because we had a nice weather spring. On top of that I changed the fluids on the tractor, the lawnmower, the riding lawnmower and cleaned the gutters.
3. Future proof my job. I got ISO 27001 certification in the spring during dry project spell, and I'm now doing my CCP certification. I have also made it a goal to do 2 hours of business development and networking every week.
4. I do billing on weekdays now, no longer on the weekends.
5. Exercise and sleep. Eat healthy. Don't drink alcohol. This means I wake up early and fresh and motivated to do a couple hours of early work every day. This usually means I'm done with my workday by 2:00pm.
6. Remove toxic relationships from your life. This could be friends, an employer, a client, whatever. They suck your happiness which impacts your productivity.
7. Don't keep up with the Jones's. Figure out what makes you happy. I've never cared about how people view me, I wear jeans and t-shirts mostly. Fancy cars & houses do nothing for me (I live in a great house on an amazing property in a very special area next to a city I have always loved even though it wasn't my "home", but it's not a McMansion). My car is low mileage and 10 years old.
8. Don't do ALL the hobbies. Find the one or two that you really get a lot out of and focus on those. For me it's music.
Did I know or do much of this when I was 20? no. 30? not really. Maybe some of this just comes from experience.
But mostly, don't believe the hype.
Sounds great, where do I find it?
Your mileage may vary.
Probably 5% of the time I'll get stuck completely and those days are immensely stressful but on the flip side, the 5% of the time I actually am able to silence the procrastination demon in my ear, those days are so satisfyingly productive.
https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY
Eventually a deadline was missed and "someone had to be blamed".
Having worked in countless companies I was ready for this and calm, basically fine with it, just kept working hard.
But I always remember of this one "middle manager" product lead or something, was constantly interrupting people, sitting with them, walking through what they were doing, following them, and eventually made a private accusation that I was "insulting other members of the team". ( I was basically silo'd knew no one, and also knew better than to criticise anyone). Stay with me...
I got chewed out by a seemingly random , mild mannered usually polite manager who never had a problem with me, infront of a few people ( I didnt say anything - instinctively I just knew this mean I was about to be let go, nothing I would say would help, and tensions were high due to deadlines ), accused of being troublesome etc. I calmly said I didnt know what he was stating, he calmed down and left.
Then I was "released from my contract".
As a consultant I don't get upset by these things, I am fine with it, I work as hard as I can and when the contract is over I leave.
However I will never forget how the one man, who never actually did any work, who interrupted everyone, and who made these accusations, was basically doing everything he could do "seem like he had a job".
He was infact, not quite the "hardworking and stupid". My only amendment that perhaps he was a special version of this, the "hardworking and unethical".
Only ever saw that once in nearly 2 decades of working but Im sure there were many more I didnt pick up on,
He stayed on, causing trouble, disrupting etc, and I always realised its because he kept a close profile to his superior, who had no eyes on the ground, and blindly trusted him due to an overload of work.
EDIT > Sorry I want to emphasise the main take away in my rant, is that the polite quiet well meaning, happy, working, well adjusted polite english gentleman behind me who was in management was suddenly shouting at me in front of others because he felt shocked at the accusation that I was a bad person, obviously which mean I deserved a dressing down, stood up and just starting shouting at me. This was a calm, relatively intelligent person, with his things in order, not affiliated with my project. Yet he just assumed an email chain from management around him, possibly with a very accusatory snippet from the trouble maker, was enough to convince him to act unprofessional and give me the dressing down. If anyone would have got into trouble or sued, it would have been this well meaning "smart" individual. That was my other main point.
In the end, there were no moves I could have made, but it was incredibly surprising how many poeple were easily manipulated into being unprofessional etc because of false information coming from their tier / one tier up. Whole narratives painted. It was quite interesting. Eventually that individual must have been let go, but what a desperate, unethical way to live.
Judging from your description, you could actually be a threat to his position. So that might be a preemptive strike.
While doing a contract and consulting I've ran into this, but nothing like my wife in her career.
First corporate job as webdev/design, had her boss get fired for embezzlement of about quarter of a mil. Bosses after that kinda sucked so she left.
Second job (marketing manager/design) was fine for a while, until her great boss left and they replaced her with a sketchy character. I listened in on a number of her meetings and we came to the conclusion that he wanted to bring in a contracting group that was going to give him kickbacks. This guy seemed highly threatened by her. She found another job and within 6 months that guy was fired and the people that still worked there didn't know the exact details but there were hush hush whispers of fraud.
Third job (sr marketing manager) was fine with the first boss over her. But as always, that person found an even better paying position and left. Next director had an issue with taking other people's work and calling it her own. Wife did something unintentionally to embarrass the director in a meeting when the director had taken my wife's work and put her name on it and upper level management saw it. A few days later my wife was put on a PIP by her manager the director even though she had got outstanding remarks on the last quarter review that had ended a month before. Needless to say she did the following. Went and got a better job (director level now) but didn't tell them that. Then went to HR and filed a complaint over the PIP and ethics violations. After some back and forth it ended up with her leaving with a severance.
Really everything I've seen in management as you go up higher in the food chain is that it seems everyone is willing to, and expects others to knife them in the back in a lot of companies.
Sounds a lot like a projection, of what they would actually do
You need to watch out for those, speaking as one myself. We did run an empire once and not by being nice. Have a look at George Orwell's short pieces set in Burmah (now Myanmar).
These capabilities can include authoring new tools but most often are soft skills and better written communication. Many people will fail at this because they cannot perform or independently determine their own performance criteria.
Sometimes the employers will set you up for failure by limiting your value potential so that you are a commodity. In these cases value is not what you add but how well you play a game.
My value (and effort), was seen as high from upper management. I also learned to schedule teams, slack, and email messages accordingly. Even if I get something done very fast, I can easily manipulate the perception around it.
This is not simple at all:
1. The "things which others cannot" are, typically, not the tasks you are given. So you would be neglecting the work you've been actually given to work on other things which you believe are important.
2. Things which people can't do are typically considered as irrelevant-to-do, and thus not a goal. When you do those things, it is likely that their positive impact is not recognized by most people.
-3. Other people (mostly above you) will steal your glory and call it their own.
I worked for a Japanese company, for most of my career. My non-Japanese status, often meant that folks with clout would not look to me, for input, when making strategies.
Personally, I think that it was OK, for a lot of stuff, as I really wasn't a "native," when it came to corporate culture, but E.L.E. disastrous, in a couple of instances; namely, where they were dealing with American companies. They made critical mistakes, by not understanding the culture.
But they did value me, and my team. They gave us work that was "corporate DNA" stuff. So secret, even our CEO didn't know about it. We had a very high level of trust, with Japan. Not sure the names the author gave to the two different approaches are ones that I would use.
No, this is too often completely wrong. Having utility is only half the battle, you also need leverage to withdraw in proportion to that utility. If the customers all know about the problem and your product, but your company has a near monopoly, the salesmen can position themselves as middlemen where the entire transaction flows past them, and they'll siphon off some nice round number - say 10% - completely disconnected from the minimal or even negative value they contributed to the process. Conversely, the engineers can find themselves completely powerless to negotiate compensation, producing value to the company 10x or 20x their salary, out of view of the customers and with no leverage to extract any more or less from the process.
> ‘Go where the rich and powerful are,’ I’d tell him, ‘and learn their ways. They can be flattered and they can be scared. Please them enormously or scare them enormously, and one moonless night they will put their fingers to their lips, warning you not to make a sound. And they will lead you through the dark to the widest, deepest river of wealth ever known to man. You’ll be shown your place on the riverbank, and handed a bucket all your own. Slurp as much as you want, but try to keep the racket of your slurping down. A poor man might hear.’
Kurt Vonnegut, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater"
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/4076-god-bless-you-mr-...
I think it might just be the organization or people. I know a lot of engineers that don't want to progress to management or other "strategic" roles. They're happy doing what they're doing and they often complain about a culture that expects them to grow in these very narrowly defined bands that eschews technical ability.
Framing it this way as though to truly "value" an employee you have to expand the scope and nature of his work does more harm that good. I think it's more about having an honest conversation with management and set expectations. Management often doesn't want to mess up something if it's going well so may not take initiative.
Don’t give up a perfectly good job just because you have power fantasy issues. You will always be a worker bee, that’s just how the world is set up. Someone or something will own your ass regardless of your compensation structure.
this hits home, hard.
No matter if their suggestions would be followed, their opinion would be heard, which ultimately establishes how valued one is.
I've seen this happen more than once, and most often, that person was recommended as the successor for who they advised.
I've been on both sides, and I like being "valued" that way: otherwise, I just feel like I am not contributing with the best I can provide, and not enjoying the ride.
It's just who I am, and it's not about "never being happy" — we all aspire to some things, and this beats compensation to me.
A lot of the kind of work the author mentions is done with the expectation that it will translate into more responsibility or influence at some point. If the company said "you're a great developer, but you'll never be more than that" the author probably wouldn't have invested to the same degree.
Thanks for reminding me again that my 20 year career has been completely useless, other than being a "seat-filler".
As long as the pay is good (or better) than in the "valued" path, useful is better.
Exception: I have equity and the decisions made are bad.
And yes, that does seem to happen more if you're wearing work boots, probably because people who never wear work boots assume that, if it can be done in work boots, it can't be as astounding and valuable as it appeared at first, or you would have moved beyond work boots by now.
Usefulness may hold its value in the trenches, but the people ultimately deciding everyone's salary generally aren't in the trenches.
I have been more easily valued for my 'use' by being easier to manipulate. Or, sorry, felt more open/safe. Money spends the same: barely, too much work.
Layoffs? To quote Janet Jackson: 'what have you done for me lately?'
The former grows (or at least maintains) a book of business and is valuable, the latter has key skills and is useful but clearly not to the same degree.
And like many other contexts, the vast pipeline of people willing to dedicate their lives to trying to be useful mitigates the value of just being useful over time.
The more useful, though more crude, metric I use in my career is to estimate how replaceable or disposable I am.
This is extraordinarily hard to evaluate at first because we all tend to look at our little domains of the code and imagine how they’d collapse without us. You have to have some humility and some business sense to start recognizing how critical you and your inputs are to the company’s mission.
Nothing brings this in focus quite like being in a meeting where a company is forced to cut budgets and lay people off. I know that’s not helpful because most people won’t get to see that directly, but you can start to imagine how that looks if you do the thought exercise enough times. Imagine the company had to cut some percentage of headcount to avoid bankruptcy. Would you be cut at the 10% threshold? The 50% threshold? 80%? I guarantee your first estimates are going to be too optimistic, but it’s a helpful thought exercise.
From the mentorship side, I frequently see people confuse being good at their job with being irreplaceable. When push comes to shove, a lot of companies can cut deeply, hire some entry-level people to put out fires, and coast for a year or two until budgets are good again. This leads to a lot of great but generic front-end, mobile app, devops, or other generic positions getting cut. The company will suffer a bit, but rarely does complete collapse occur (despite what we like to imagine).
On the other hand, there are roles where companies cannot cut without immediate and long lasting pain. Cutting lead developers of core products or kicking out the sales team isn’t an option. It’s always the people working on generic problems, side quests, pet projects, or acting as clean up crews for the main teams who are normally too valuable to put on the generic work who get cut.
It’s possible for work to be valuable but also be eminently replaceable, offshore-able, or be a top candidate for being paused or cancelled when the budgets suddenly get tight.
Yeah the company needs a website and needs front-end developers for it, but does it need to be you? Or even in-house at all?
In the end it's just luck.
I avoided the first big round of layoffs at my last company. How? By being so overwhelmingly awesome and valuable that they couldn't afford to lose me?? NO!
I agreed to a smaller pay increase that year so a team member could get a much-deserved larger raise. I accepted more stock grants to help make up the difference. The next round of layoffs was based on stock packages granted to employees. More stock granted == more better, right?
Sheer luck I didn't get the notice that time.
The entire office was likely seen as "staff augmentation" rather than strategic.
I think a much more important question is: what are you being valued for and does that fit with your goals?
A person who wants to build skills to take on the world's most challenging problems probably doesn't want to be valued for their ability to grind on the tedious tasks or because they look good in marketing materials, for example.
This article is heavy on emotional persuation, but rationally, it is not even operationally defining the terms. It posits the existence of 2 categories of employees, when, it is hard to know if they even exist.
We may deride the bloviations of the folks who are "all talk and no code" and how they seemingly ride the coattails of folks actually in the trenches, but honestly a lot of people do great work and sorta expect it to get "naturally noticed" in the corporate environment.
Not saying ditch your IDE and just throw around buzzwords in boring could've-been-an-email "sync meetings", but don't forget that demonstrating the value you have is also important and often neglected skill.
If a clever PR hotfix merges in the forest, does it make a sound?
I am telling on myself here, in a way, as this article hit hard and with great serendipity: I was part of a RIF at a well-known company this very morning, and I most definitely did not advocate very well for myself despite really holding the projects I was on together technically in the background / shadows.
Here how the article defines it:
> Being valued, on the other hand, means that you are brought into more conversations, not just to execute, but to help shape the direction. This comes with opportunities to grow and contribute in ways that are meaningful to you and the business.
But I would say that in a business setting, the definition of being valued is usually much less abstract, it just means you are worth money, the value here is a dollar amount.
Being valued this way doesn't mean that you will be given opportunities to grow, but it means that there is a good chance you won't be laid off, and that they will listen to your requests as an employee, because they consider that by losing you, they are going to lose money (that is, your value).
For a while I was struggling to pinpoint my discontent, but I ended up realizing it was because I felt I was undervalued compared to the contributions I had made over the years.
As it happened, my superiors had come to realize the same, so when I asked for a talk, they preempted my plan by announcing this.
As mentioned by the article, I've since been included in much more strategic talks and discussions to help shape the future of the company, as we're moving our products from the desktop to the web.
It's still something I'll keep an eye on, but just realizing the source of my frustration was very helpful. It also made me more aware of how I shouldn't sacrifice too much unless it's being valued, as opposed to just being more useful.
I wish I had realized the source of my frustration and thus acted on it earlier.
It lead to a quite downbeat feeling, which still lingers a bit every now and then.
Of course this was just before the current mass layoffs, so getting a new job was definitely an option then, which I almost certainly would have taken had they not seen me.
What is "this"?
By "this" I meant that they had undervalued me and my contributions.
As a consequence I got a promotion and, as mentioned, included in higher-level talks.
about as long as the real world continues to have finite resources and people have differing ideas about what to do with them
There are other ways to cooperate that don’t depend on sociopathy and infighting.
Your rhetoric doesn't pass. You contradict yourself in a single turn. Can't cite "scarcity" and "infinity" powers this fictional economic system you thought of as "capitalism".
It’s the classic “capitalism is built on scarcity but behaves as if infinite growth is possible”-critique. There are interesting responses to that but “it’s contradictory” ain’t one of them.
So be the diamond, not the water. Unless there's no water around anymore...
If you are effective where you are, why would the organization want to promote you and lose the work you are doing now? Maybe the higher-ups were aware of the Peter Principle.
More deeply, this hints at something we probably all need to internalize. Engineering and "management" should be separate tracks. Right now, management is mostly synonymous with people manage, lording it over people. Good engineers might aspire to rise higher into "management", which might be a poor fit for their skills, interests, and temperament. Engineers should be able to rise to the top as engineers.
If you see management as your ideal destination, then go into that from the start. Become a management trainee, not an engineer. But overall I think (people) management should lose it's aura of prestige. It's just a skill like any other, and people in those positions are frequently ill suited to it.
I believe in making yourself invaluable, but would caution against falling into a niche. Especially if you want to avoid getting caught up in a layoff. But as long as you have valuable skills you will be able to find other work. Some companies are better at hiring (talent acquisition) than others.
Being a diligent workhorse makes you 'useful' - you're reliably closing tickets. But 'valued' often means bringing innovation or strategic foresight that's harder to replicate.
Sometimes, too much visible grind on routine tasks can almost cap your perceived value. It reminds me of the senior dev whose Jira updates might be terse — like 'Continuing research on core problem' — for days. They're not judged on daily ticket volume, but on the eventual breakthrough or critical insight that unblocks everyone or defines the next big thing. That signals a different kind of leverage and indispensability than just high output.
I've seen these tickets a bunch.
They have two types of authors, the first is the person flailing to accomplish anything and hoping that they can recruit someone else to figure it out or to take it over before they're found out. The second is the person who is failing to communicate what strategies they're using to solve the problem. Neither person is all that valuable, though the second type will at least be useful to someone who will eventually take credit for their work.
At some point later in life, I hope you’ll figure out your own sense of value, true to your being, and decoupled from what others may grant. Your raison d'être.
Ultimately i see this whole trajectory as a communist plot- centralizing control and profit.
A useful person tends to have the ability to get hired elsewhere, and will sometimes do this even at a drop in salary, if they are more valued elsewhere.
Sometimes being able to demonstrate that itself can increase your value to your current company.
Being good at your own work makes you useful.
However being strategic, thinking about the bigger picture, AND being able to effectively communicate that while navigating the complex social interactions of your leadership team, that makes you valued and will lead to a path to leadership (managerial or technical).
So many of is have poor social skills. It pays to focus on them and not just the skills relevant to your tasks at hand.
Sure you might get a surprise 50% bonus during a layoff. So you work even harder and put your heart in the company because you feel "grateful" for the appreciation -- the company apparently values you a lot. Guess what? You might be the perfect guy to lay off in the next round (as soon as within a few months), whether because of your role/performance of the quarter/relationship with new boss or just no reason.
Good for you that it didn't happen like that. But plenty of people had such experience.
Which is why I never put more effort or emotion than necessary for my job. When I think I need to work overtime, or when I get frustrated about something/someone at work and keep thinking about it after work, I ask myself, what if I get laid off tomorrow? Then the answer becomes apparent.
It's funny that peasants tell each other the difference between "useful" and "valued". Capitalists can't get more of these. Executives are laughing in their chair reading this article.
As the dowager countess in Downton Abbey said: trying to be useful is so "middle class". She didn't mean it as a compliment.
And then I started working for a different kind of companies.
I screen out any structure with VC money.
It means I work for company that you never heard of, but that are profitable year after year.
How? They are very careful who gets in. And they make sure everyone is actually useful. Ration manager to worker is really really low.
Oh, and they build a product with the intends of selling it. Crazy, I know.
Being a work horse is nice. But if you can’t work with others, that might be one you are on the layoff list
99% of the time people are not getting promoted or retained simply because they're more friendly with people at the top, but because they're broadly respected, cooperative, and have some adequate level of competency.
The anti-social 10x developer who sits in the corner of the office grunting at people with his headphones on might spit out a lot of code, but does so while causing friction and problems within the wider team. They might think highly of themselves, but they fail to see how a company full of these people cannot operate efficiently.
Doing "real work" + making effort to be liked and cooperative with those around you is the right strategy. Over indexing on just being like or just doing real work isn't going to get you very far.
You said, "they don't like me" and if that's true I do think you should try harder to be liked. You can still raise objections to things and have your own input, but learning how to do that in a way that doesn't irritate people or derail the team is an important skill to have.
I empathise though because I struggle with this myself – I'm autistic so I find it hard to be likeable and communicate with nuance. I have lost jobs and promotions because of my inability to play well in teams in the past. Even today it's hard, but it's better now I at least try my best.
I funded my studies working as intern at the university, it was sometimes rough, but very competitive work environment. There were some intrigues regarding lab funding and permanent positions, but it was fine after all. What I found later working for smaller and bigger companies is too bizarre. The amount of people who are ready to slit colleague’s throats for 200€ pre-tax monthly salary increase is shocking high.
Working in a team is nice unless the team is not functional. One can bake much bigger cake in a team. But… it appears there are too many people who will take team’s result and present as their own. Or just ignore their work packages. Or managers not resistant to a* licking.
I have good relationship with colleagues on my level and with my direct manager. Production guys come to me with technical problems, because they’re afraid of other hardware developer. The thing is that it’s ok to be not liked by everybody. I don’t like uneducated general manager assigned to this company by the new owner. I don’t like the bozo explosion happening here. The production guys don’t like other hardware developer. My manager does not like interim HR manager. But it’s fine as long as it does not lead to psycho relationships and toxic behavior.
But you also need to find people who are useful, undervalued (in the sense of the article, not in the sense of pay), and who are also willing to take the risk of jumping into a new environment even if that's uncomfortable at first. That means they need somehow to check that they'll be really valued at the new place, not just given a fancy title but no real decision-making involvement.
My guess is there's a positive correlation between useful-but-not-valued people and ones who are risk-averse and/or not the best social climbers, because the people who are both technically and socially brilliant or risk-taking are either valued already, or have already left your organisation.
I'd rather be useful than be valued but is totally useless. :D
Want to sell your soul and climb the corporate ladder so that you are "valued", go for it. You won't be so valued when the company gets bought and they don't need two vice presidents of blah.
It still remains a fact that most working people don't have a few days to sit in front of a computer making art. Especially not uninterrupted.
Some valuable insights from thee books are:
Sun Tzu: The Art of War Success often comes from preparation and positioning, not effort alone. Promotions tend to go to people who made themselves hard to ignore before opportunities opened up. Don’t fight every battle, pick the ones that matter.
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations Focus on what you can control. Most stress comes from chasing recognition or reacting to things you can’t change.
Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People Being technically strong isn’t enough. Careers are shaped by relationships. Listening, being likable, and helping others shine often creates more traction than pushing your own brilliance.
If I had started with these mindsets earlier, I probably would’ve saved a few years of frustration. Good luck to everyone dealing with these issues.
If you engage in that kind of work, it's not just that you'll not be recognized/valued, but rather - be thought negatively of, for doing that.
For example, by doing X this will improve our efficiency in performing Y by 80% and help us achieve our goal by reducing time wasted on Z.
Even if we took your example: Suppose it will improve the efficiency based on other, additional, work that would take a long while, and it is not trivial to understand why.
> "help us achieve our goal by reducing time wasted on Z."
Manager may well tell you:
* "I never allocate time for Z, only for concrete project goals. And nobody ever complains about wasting time on Z."
* "I don't know if you guys waste time on Z or not, but I definitely know that if I approve your request you will be wasting time on it, rather than implementing a new feature or fixing a bug."
Tools are useful but ultimately can be thrown in the trash. Valuable things must be preserved and treated with respect. Strategic thinkers and VCs are treasured, but workers and ICs are dispensable.
This is just a lot of words to imply a moral hierarchy around social class.
I have noticed as I got older that many paycheck collectors are totally unaware of risk (as I was), likely because it plays no part in there day to day life. They are hyper-focused on the minority whose bets paid off and got obscenely wealthy, and totally unaware of the massive graveyard of those who incinerated their life savings. Hell it's not uncommon for a business to collapse because of honest mistakes made by the paycheck collectors, who upon the business closing just went and got another job, maybe after being on unemployment for a bit. For the risk takers, I can tell you that unemployment checks don't cover lost equity.
The rub here is that the paycheck collectors also highly value the "good" risk takers. Most people, given the opportunity, would put their money into a fund managed by someone with an excellent track record.
just to nitpick - the consensus among historians now is that the pyramids were built by paid laborers, not slaves
The more rare you are, the more you are valued. You still have to be useful to be valuable though.
In order to acquire those rare skills, an ungodly amount of work is often required. It is also a huge variable. A rare skill today can become useless tomorrow.
Also, beware of indispensable people. "This company needs me" can have all sorts of causes. Maybe you didn't documented things right, maybe you just have a long history with them. It doesn't mean being rare. Being rare is feeling "this skill I have could be of use to any similar company and few people know it".
The skill could be anything. Perfect pitch, excelent document writing, de-escalation, low-level bit shaving.
I agree, but I think it slightly differently, Valued = useful + hard to replace.
How difficult is to be replaced by some other human or a machine.
Valued = Useful + hard to find + easy to work with
> But you are seen primarily as a gap-filler
You are, if the org works, seen as a person fulfilling an important enough function (because... otherwise you would not be hired) and if you then do that, that is fantastic. When anything doesn't work, that sucks, and that is something that every employer understands.
However if you are not okay with the role that you are occupying in that apparatus, or no longer okay, that's not on your employer (unless, of course, you have been mislead about your role or trajectory). Some people are looking to do a specific thing for a long time and getting really good at that, and it makes me sad to see when people try to cast shadow on that. I certainly wouldn't, but I would caution against projecting your own value judgements onto other people. It says more about how you look at the world, and what kind of place you would create, than it says about the company you work for.
I'm way too clumsy and unpredictable for this 'one shot to make an impression' approach. During critical times, I tend to put forward my worst self, I can't help it. I tend to pathologically undersell myself and my work. Like my brain wants me to do everything on hard mode, just for entertainment value and so that I have stuff to talk/complain about. It's like I self-sabotage to ensure that my success rate stays below 10%.
When bad stuff happens, I don't even feel anything anymore. I expect failure. Though I still feel really great in those rare times when good stuff happens.
I have met useless, dumb or insane, but charismatic people who can instantly be in charge of any room they walk into. It is not rational. It’s monkey stuff. One of them is currently the President of the USA, and truth be told I think most presidents have these qualities to varying degrees. (The current one is just a very pure example.)
That being said, it doesn’t always work. It tends to work best on people who are inexperienced or who have some emotional need for a parent figure. But that's a lot of people.
That's how I'd interpret these words. "Useful" means you do something that's beneficial to the company (or at least your management). "Valued" means that the company (or at least your management) believes you do something that's beneficial to them. In a well-run company, these match well. In many companies, they don't.
Being valued is a big part of what drives advancement. If you're seen as beneficial then the company (or management) will usually try to keep you, and offer you opportunities to expand that benefit. If management sees and understands what you do, then being useful can suffice here. Otherwise, the gap between these things means you need to be political and ensure that your usefulness is seen and understood.
The article seems to be talking about leverage, collaboration, and reach. Your usefulness on your own is limited. Beyond a certain point, the only way to become more useful is to start acting as a multiplier to other people's efforts. That's what it describes as "valued," but that really doesn't seem like the right word at all.
I'd put it like this: success on the job depends on how you're seen, not just what you do. Be mindful of how those are connected at your particular position. And your impact, both in terms of practical outcomes and visibility, can only grow so much on your own. If you want to go beyond that, you need to work with others and multiply their work.
But they always have a spreadsheet where they calculate how they can convert your former salary into their bonus.
"Never underestimate (management) greed" - to paraphrase Scarface.
Competence, especially when objective and irrefutable but not accompanied by what are assumed to be mandatory associated traits (see halo effect) is seen as an affront to nature and creates a very intense sense of dissonance and injustice that prompts corrective measures, usually in the form of scapegoating.
There is life outside your job, you only live once.
I respect teacher work deeply and think they should be vastly more compensated than they are.
The fact that it you are a teacher it might be complex to buy a house and have kids is mind boggling.
I agree with your comment.
Only when the times are good, as many of us had to learn the hard way.
When times are tough and there aren't enough resources to go around - there is no substitute for being the one allocating the resources, or at least close to them.
> And if you don't have it, you don't have it.
hope this is parody