To the author: You have thought about your boss likely 100x more than he ever thought about you.

Don't do him this favor. You are giving him too much power that way.

And be sure that he forgot about you, like COMPLETELY, maximum 72 hours after you were let go. Do the same. Take your lessons, internalize them, and forget the source. Be like an LLM: have the right conclusion inside your brain after the source material is long gone and thrown out.

Move on.

---

I am in my 40s and just now I am beginning to start understanding only a part of the dynamics involved in companies. But the TL;DR is that executives want to shine and look better, always. They only care about an ever-increasing compensation _and_ bonuses. They care not about the company's long-term success.

If you are in the way of that -- with your pesky technical stability and less resource usage, being one example -- then you are an inconvenience and will be removed. They want people who help them look better to their upper echelons.

That's just one example.

From here on my playbook will be to attend more executive meetings when I start a job, and get a feel of who does what and what are their goals -- and make sure I at least don't stand in the line of the fire when sh1t hits the fan. And will always have something else lined up even if I love my current team to bits. Simply because the said said team has exactly zero say if I get to stay or get booted out simply because somebody two levels above wants a promotion and my salary is making it look like they spend too much.

(I remember how much I regretted losing one job some three years ago. I loved everyone there but I had a terrible health condition and couldn't perform. But you know what? The guy who was practically doing 80% of everything there, all the time, got fired a year and half after me. Reason? Product is done and delivered, we don't need you anymore, nevermind that we get feature requests and the occasional bug reports all the time.)

"Nothing personal. Just business."

Well, two can play at that game. Wish me luck. I want my heart to harden. I want to stop caring. I want to learn to preserve my caring for the things that truly excite me about technology.

I might fail. But I am very quickly learning the game and I will adapt.

I wish OP does the same.

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rhyperior 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

"I want my heart to harden."

You're just at a different place in the curve of rationalizing other humans' behaviors and motivations and how they affect you. Your response is not invalid, but it makes me sad, because you think it's the best response for you. Why wouldn't you instead hold on to your empathy and make it your super power?

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rkomorn 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Why wouldn't you instead hold on to your empathy and make it your super power?

At least one reason would be because the empathetic person is usually the one bearing most of the cost of this "super power" while at best only sharing in the reward. Quite often entirely thankless work.

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pdimitar 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

How exactly would empathy be a superpower? If I'm empathetic then I'm effectively making excuses for people who don't care that they make my work unbearable.

I'm very interested in your response. I have accepted that I have blind spots and I want to remove them.

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rkomorn 2 days ago | parent [-]

Not "OP", but I will say that empathy can certainly help you build better things (tools, processes, policies, etc) for the people they affect.

It can also help you understand where coworkers or peers are coming from, and work with them better.

The problem comes when it's a one way road where the empathetic person is doing all the work.

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pdimitar 2 days ago | parent [-]

That's exactly what happened. I tried improving processes and worked so hard that I neglected my wife.

I was removed because the team lead thought I'm going over his head... while I coordinated every move with him. But the moment I disagreed with him -- once, and for the first time -- I was removed. Zero discussion.

I'm quite empathetic. My original message above comes from bitterness because neither extreme is good. I was in the positive extreme for a while. Too sympathetic, always finding excuses for people who only saw me as a tool to advance their own careers and removed me the minute they thought that was no longer true.

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rhyperior 2 days ago | parent [-]

Go somewhere you’re valued? Why compromise your own values to make your manager happy.

Empathy is a super power because it helps you understand people and connect with them, and connecting and collaborating is how we succeed. You’re deciding to cut that off in response to what sounds like a shit situation, like cutting off your own fingers.

	▲	pdimitar a day ago \| parent [-]
		I'm currently trying to go where I'm valued. Unlike a lot of privileged people who only have to pick up the phone, I actually have to do interviews. Takes time and a lot of energy. As mentioned elsewhere, being empathetic landed me in this crappy situation so sometimes I have my doubts of the strategic value of that trait. I don't punish others for the a-holery of those who wronged me. Seems to work wonders so far and things are turning around in a very positive way. I'm just despairing how much time it all takes.

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cons0le 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> The guy who was practically doing 80% of everything there, all the time, got fired a year and half after me

Every team I've been on has had one rockstar. I've seen the rockstar get fired 3 different times. Maybe they were making too much, or rising too fast, I'm not sure. But I do know that being the "most productive" doesn't guarantee employment

	▲	pdimitar 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, sadly. And before somebody quickly interjects: he not just was not an a-hole, he was extremely kind, calm and always supportive. You almost never hear him say: "I am too busy right now, can we do this later?". Seriously. Almost never. Yep. Still got fired. And he was not rising or anything. Was a small hardcore team, zero politics were involved, they were tight-knit, loved them. But there was only so much the CTO could do; it was a startup that was under the boot of a bigger org he was actually working in. He fought for good paychecks for everyone, and generous severance too. But had no say if the higher echelons said that somebody had to be let go. There's no moral of the story except "don't sweat your job, they'll replace you the next day". Treat it as a transaction, not as a second family.