Surviving Toxic Dev Workplace
The Secret Developer has worked in many different environments. Some are better than others but at least in most there has been a team spirit or willingness to get work done.
“I thought that was the least that I could expect. Then I began in my current job.
I think it’s time to come clean about what a developer unfriendly environment can be, and what it has done to my productivity and wellbeing.”
The unfriendly environment
Cold beginnings
“It seems like a reasonable ask, doesn’t it? ‘Can you come into the office before your contract start date’?
The problem? I didn’t have a break between jobs. Did they expect me to ask my previous employer to give me a half-day vacation (with one week's notice) to start work for another company? Or for me to go across town during worktime during my last week.
I felt it might be a test of my values. So I told them it wasn’t appropriate to ask them to skip work.
I felt bad about having to say no. However these days most companies have a procedure for setting up staff offsite, however my current employer still can’t do that.
Warning signs of a poor employer? Actually, it’s a dev-unfriendly environment.”
The Freezing first day
“I remember my first day at this company. A member of IT support arranged to meet me to set up my computer. They were late, but I felt my manager would give me a break as it wasn’t my fault.
Nobody seemed to work at the office (even though it’s right in the middle of the city) so I sat on my own in the deserted office.
I found that I’d been assigned an ‘introduction to engineering’ meeting on my first day at 9 am. I’d missed it because the IT support was late and I didn’t have a machine to log into the call anyway. I’m still waiting for that meeting to be rearranged.
I didn’t have a call with my boss. I didn’t have work to do. I explored the project and got my dev environment setup.
At the end of the day, I didn’t know what time to finish. I asked the support guy (most of the people in the office had already gone home, and my colleagues were offline).
At the time I thought this onboarding might get better. Perhaps people were unusually busy. It must get better, right (it didn’t).”
The cost center resource
“We call our engineers resources here. When you leave they speak excitedly about handing over work to a new resource.
In engineering, we are also referred to as cost centers. It’s anti-developer. Certainly, the 19-inch monitors the company provides in the office show they don’t want to provide cutting edge technology.
It’s developer unfriendly to drive a wedge like this between the business and technical staff.”
On your work anniversary
“We celebrate anniversaries at this company. The all-hands do, but since there are too many people they only do 3 years or more.
Some teams celebrate.
Mine went without a mention.”
Cancelling work accounts
“This happened today. You’re in the middle of a chat conversation with a colleague and your Microsoft accounts log out. Locked.
Our company lock all of your accounts around once a quarter. IT support can’t unlock it, they email a password to your manager.
If your manager is absent then you need to wait for their return. Seriously.”
DevOps are king
“Recently Devops changed the number of reviewers we need to approve work before it is merged to three.
They make up the rules and we have to stick to it. They also enforce a regex rule on PR names again without consultation.
Amazing that DevOps run the show. Any day the CI rules can change. We just need to conform to those rules.“
The influence on productivity
“I’m writing this unable to work as my accounts have been locked. I often think this is because I have been fired but no such luck. You find yourself locked out of your accounts, unable to make any progress in your work.”
The influence on wellbeing
“I have a headache and I feel like crying sometimes.
This frustration stems from my passion for coding and my eagerness to work. I don’t see how other people work in this environment without going slowly crazy TBH.”
Conclusion
“Time to leave this company The Secret Developer.