so you're the office fuck up - software edition

hi!

do you dread work?

do the regular space time constraints of an agile environment seem to warp in your very presence?

does every story you take seem simple only to later become the job equivalent of those shit covered bamboo stake pit traps the Vietcong perfected?

perhaps you’ve been ridiculed by managers, product owners or tech leads for being unreliable?

maybe even placed on a PIP?

if so,

welcome dear fuck-up!

failure is sadly not often talked about in tech circles (unless it’s just a fake resilience signal for founders) so I’m glad you’re here.

to start things off this guide assumes that you care that you have been labeled a fuck up,which at this time and in this job market is a very scary thing.

below is a self reflection guide to hopefully help you work through all of the emotions that are no doubt making life pretty rough right now. this guide doesn’t have answers per se but the point, much like a post atomic cockroach or snack cake, is to endure.

unless you don’t want to. that is also an option, but sunk cost fallacy am I right?

uh, heh, anyway here’s the guide:

first and foremost remember that you’re not alone and you’re only human

people have always fucked up- in fact entire sitcoms of the 90s revolved around this very premise. you just happened to be, at this moment in time, living within a culture that is particularly precarious and not fuck up friendly.

you are also, despite the seemingly never ending optimism and just do it attitude of most tech content, not alone.

yes, everyone has that time they fucked up prod, you probably do to, but-

did that kill their credibility? cost them a raise? make a manager laugh when they brought up wanting to become a senior?

well, I mean that probably has happened to some of them but people don’t like to admit it.

regardless its happened. you are assuredly not the world’s shittiest dev or engineer, even though it definitely feels like it. mathematically that’s not possible and even if the odds did favor it, the big assumption of this guide is that you still care.

so yeah if you have anything at least you have that.

if you haven’t yet gone through the work of decoupling your identity from your work, this is an amazing time to do so. this, however, is not an all in one solution in a bottle absolutely covered in spiritual phrases.

this is a good thing to do in general as a human being in the world, but it will not remove all shitty emotions as, like I said before, you still care.

people tend to like to do at least decent work. people tend to like getting their kudos at least some of the time; even if they are no longer defining themselves by their work.

the benefit to this separation is more of an on your own time kind of thing. a proven strategy to hold onto some inherent self worth even when shit goes south, because, get this, as hard as it is to internalize, we all have inherent worth as human beings.

to segway off 2 - why do you still feel a type of way about a job even when it doesn’t define you?

well you see it has a little something to do with the fact that we live in a system called capitalism gone wild. now some folks from the 1800s who loved to talk about exchanging linen for goods covered this extensively so I won’t go too far or too deep with it but -

you know that good feeling you get when you make a tasty meal? put together flat pack furniture without losing your mind? to get generic - that good feeling that comes pretty much any time you assemble or create something from scratch?

ask yourself how often that happens in your job.

it’s not a lot right?

well you see that’s a problem.

the solution? well tech’s not good at that yet, but if anyone at your job starts talking about organizing a union, my advice is to get in on that ASAP.

now this is not at all judgemental, I promise, but the name of the game here is reducing guilt, so I have to ask - are you even trying? or did you give it a good try at some point?

again this is not some kind of productivity reckoning nor is it an attempt to label you as a scumbag, we’re just trying to tease out what is really the fuck up so to speak.

now this could get really messy right? it’s always been messy, but if you’ve done things and tried to do things, then know there is some other variable, even if you haven’t discovered it yet.

think of it as the missing semicolon of your career; you might find it, someone else might, or the whole file gets refactored. or the feature gets scrapped entirely.

or… I’m out of metaphors dude… but just always think of it this way, new metaphor time.

no code lasts. it will always be rewritten, refactored, removed. code is like those cool buddhist mandala sand painting thingies that get destroyed by the wind so like its not that serious ok?

is your boss an asshole?

assuming you care and you’ve given it at least one good shot, let’s now look at someone else involved. the big someone, the person who can make your job life a veritable heaven or hell.

now if your manager actually cares about managing there may still be hope. but I caution that you really need to make sure they actually want to manage. sure they may be cool but something that gets learned the hard way and often tragically too late is that some “good” managers are actually just negligent ones. you may have great one on ones but does anything come from them? does anything happen?

in an odd way asshole managers can actually be kind of refreshing in that wow you mean they can actually have an effect on things kind of way.

anywho if you truly do have a good active manager who actually wants to manage being frank with them about how you feel might help you find what's missing. but then again if you had a good manager you probably would not have gotten to the point of being the office fuck up right?

good managers are few and far in between sadly. but on the bright side, if you have some shred of people skills, maybe this ordeal can make you a good manager someday. who knows? it’s always good to hope

are you neurodivergent and would accommodations even help at this point

this one is pretty much what it says on the tin. a lot of us in this field are neurodivergent and for whatever reason aren’t terribly open about it even though some people automatically know from our auras and treat us like shit.

if you are privileged enough to have a diagnosis and are still new to the whole fuck up label accommodations might be able to pull you back from the brink. or, to be very real they could get you unlawfully fired, but idk at least maybe give it try and if things get even worse find an employment lawyer and or start thinking about that ‘u’ word at the end of #3.

do you live somewhere or work for a company that has wild standards for work ethic?

not all job environments are created equally. we as tech folks talk a lot about this, probably due to the nature of being curious people, but most of the time its along the is this a startup? is this corporate? kind of line.

well if might make you feel better to know that there is another component to this and its cultural so no wonder liberal arts adverse folks haven’t addressed it much but

in addition to what kind of work you’re at, where is it? because what I’m getting at darling failure of a reader is that some parts of the the US or even the world have wildly different work ethics that might be fucking you. now some of this is overt - crunching for deadlines, wild hours justified with a you’re salary so what response.

and yes as we get deeper into this guide I am starting to suggest what you might be thinking I’m suggesting which is, is this the best place for you? as much as people like to dismiss change by saying that greener grass does not exist, it does. and so does browner grass.

going on a tour of grasses, touching it, reflecting etc - well that’s pretty much life right?

before you go on your search for manicured bermuda, lets pump breaks first and try to get some perspective?

is this the only job in tech you’ve ever had? do you have any basis for comparison?

again there will always be folks who do it better, or to go the other way, shitshows even bigger.

yes comparison steals joy but she can also bring it. brunch or dishing at a random suburban sit down chain restaurant would not be as juicy if this were not the case.

hopefully dear reader you have at least one friend who works at a place that is more of a shitshow than your job. take comfort in their tales of others incompetence. cling to them, use them to patch up the holes in the wall that keeps your imposter syndrome at bay.

now before I attempt to go off on an affirming high note, lets get really serious and scary

do you even want to do this job anymore? do you even want to be in tech anymore?

if you are lucky you have other marketable skills then these questions aren't super scary.

if you don’t and don’t have a clue what the fuck you might be good at the second question might be straight up mortifying.

if you do relate more with the second option I will again reiterate that tech is a pretty wide and varied place, so much so I truly don’t think there isn’t a niche for everybody.

finding that niche? well if you don’t have it by now or an idea of what it is this is where the good news ends, because your only transportation to it will be on the struggle bus.

avoiding or leaving the struggle bus is not a personal or professional failure. and if you do leave it and someone gives you guff they’re an asshole not worthy of consideration.

To top this dark cope guide off I have prepared a little something that I hope is not too cringe and is actually motivational:

It may sound trite but try your very best not to let this effect the best parts of you; your whimsy, your joy, your creativity. These things are especially important as you go through tough times in life. Like the famous poem says, inside of you there is a bird and a rock, the objective is not to kill the bird with rock.

These are the things that make life worth living, a fact that is confirmed by the realization that these are the first things truly evil people try to attack and take away from us.

I’m not going to tell you this situation is not that serious, because again like I said earlier these are precarious times. You could very well be one firing away from losing it all.

Just know that out there somewhere there is at least one other fuck up cheering you on, hoping for and wishing you the best.