{"id":1805,"date":"2013-03-21T16:02:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T15:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/2013\/03\/21\/downgrade\/"},"modified":"2016-03-08T07:33:36","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T06:33:36","slug":"downgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/2013\/03\/21\/downgrade\/","title":{"rendered":"Downgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: this post was written more than a week ago and forgotten somewhere deep inside the drafts folder. I edited it before publishing, removing all the embarrassing details and leaving just the conclusion.<\/em><\/p>\n

I noticed a pattern a few days ago and now I can’t unsee it, so I’m going to share it with you. The thing is about job quality. The first job in my career was like this (back in 2007):<\/p>\n

\n

Position: one of the project fathers: admin, coder, hardware guy. You’re a one-man orchestra when you’re a founding father.
\u2028Employment: part-time (¼), mostly remote (but with epic meetings from time to time).\u2028
Mode: Hardcore startup – we actually did build our first server in the garage (I have photos if you don’t believe me).\u2028
People: Great people, lots of freedom, tons of experience.
\u2028Freedom: Choose whatever you think will work best.
\u2028Trust: It was fundamental to trust each other. We did review each other’s work if it was essential from security point of view.\u2028
Extras: The only job I ever had that paid for business travels – I even visited Amsterdam once and the company rented a vehicle for me – it was a bicycle, of course, but bike is The Way to move around in Amsterdam.\u2028
Fame: It was 5 years ago and people still recognize me as that Kosma from that project.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And there’s the last one (don’t cross-reference with LinkedIn or you’ll come to completely wrong conclusions):<\/p>\n

\n

Position: backend coder\/architect.\u2028
Employment: full-time, office.\u2028
Mode: Young company, yet with surprisingly strict approach to processes and procedures. Worked on one of many projects.\u2028
Freedom: Barely any. Consensus-based EVERYTHING. Mandatory code review procedures, annoying git branching model, work time tracking, no root access for developers.\u2028
Trust: each change was reviewed by three people. We had to send daily reports (scrum, anyone?).\u2028
People: I didn’t bond with the team at all. They spent 8 hours a day staring at their screen, saying nothing.\u2028
Extras: quarterly bonuses.\u2028
Fame: Signed an NDA so I can’t tell you anything about that project. I think I’m allowed to mention the name.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

This change didn’t happen from job to job; it was a gradual process of losing control, losing trust, becoming a sweatshop worker and earning more and more money I didn’t really wanted to spend because I was so tired, bored, almost depressed.<\/p>\n

To make things clear: this is not the employers’ fault; the mistake is mine. Somewhere along the way I forgot what my priorities are. Chasing the stupid dream of earning more and more money, I betrayed my hacker ideals and sold myself – losing the integrity and becoming a whore.<\/p>\n

Where do I go from here? The answer is simple: back. Not to the same employers, obviously – you can’t step back into the same river – but to the same kind of job: a place where your talent is put to the test via technological challenges, not via pleasing the management and passing Git hooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: this post was written more than a week ago and forgotten somewhere deep inside the drafts folder. I edited it before publishing, removing all the embarrassing details and leaving just the conclusion. I noticed a pattern a few days ago and now I can’t unsee it, so I’m going to share it with you. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[318],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2219,"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions\/2219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosma.pl\/diaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}