28 ms·

I made same mistake, I saw how old system underperformed and that I could make it better, faster, more stable and bring higher profit. When I presented that my

I made same mistake, I saw how old system underperformed and that I could make it better, faster, more stable and bring higher profit. When I presented that my boss, next I know I’m in room with HR, my bosse’s boss and technical lead (who was practically executive director), to my surprise boss started conversation with “your actions concerning me...” they told me to give all the related code, documents and remove everything from my computer. After that incident I never got promoted, my annual bonus was always 50% of everyone’s. No one in the team wanted to talk to me, I was excluded from any design meetings. Eventually my whole team got promoted to principal engineers and all new comers were one level above me. That was the worst 4 years in my life ( I had to work for them because of the work visa)

jonnycomputer 8y ago
Sounds like a toxic company. Sorry you couldn't ditch them.
InafuSabi 8y ago
I do not understand why you were treated as if you wrote viral code which wiped all networked storage of the company. Did anyone ever say why you were treated like an infectuous disease after doing something good, which would benefit everyone?
- jolmg 8y ago
  The fact that he was a foreigner provides a hint. It seems there's a general fear in the US of foreign workers taking the jobs of citizens. I wonder, is it not possible to switch employers when you have a work visa?
  - iratewizard 8y ago
    Or maybe more realistic and less paranoid: the code he wrote was more performant but significantly less maintainable. Look at it from a director's perspective. Technical debt from an H1b. Is he trying to maintain job security by being the only one who understands how a critical module works?
    - parrot_11 8y ago
      "Technical debt from an H1b." You seem to have jumped to a conclusion rather quickly. Even assuming for a second that the hysteria was because the new function that GP wrote is complex, wouldn't the reaction to that would've been "Can you write it more clearly?" instead of the hysteria and pariah ceremony?
    - watwut 8y ago
      That situation would warrant 10 min discussion with lead. Not this. You version is quite paranoid on itself - junior denied learning and shunned for a single mistake.
    - adrianhel 8y ago
      In this scenario the lack of performance was significant, so I would say it was necessary. If performance was adequate, different story. For example. We have a redux based content editor that is quite slow. It is however more than performant enough for the use case. I would love it if someone refactored it though...
      - hueving 8y ago
        You don't know how significant the performance difference was. You're just believing the commenter who thought it was without hearing from the company who obviously didn't think it was a priority.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
    there's a general fear in the US of foreign workers taking the jobs of citizens Comments from our idiot president and his ilk aside, there is not. I'm willing to entertain discussions to the contrary, but this is far from my experience either here in the Midwest, or on the East Coast where I previously worked.
    - ChristianGeek 8y ago
      It’s not the case in Southern California, either.
    - throwawaymjabba 8y ago
      I worked for the US counter part of an Indian company in Illinois for a couple of years. We used to have town hall meetings every quarter. On 2 such meetings, I heard two separate American employees questioning the speaker about outsourcing more. He would be talking about how they are planning to spread out a project with 20% in US, 50% in India, remaining in Europe and some other place. In both the occasions, they asked questions that meant why only 20% in US or something similar. He always replied that's what the customer is willing to pay, that the customer has so and so budget, and this is how we are meeting it.
HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
When you presented what to your boss, exactly? Did you suggest "I can make it better, faster, more stable...?" or did you go ahead and make the change and say "see?" Were you in a position where you should even have been thinking about this system? I wonder what steps in this story you're leaving out?
- jpatokal 8y ago
  +1. The fact that HR's involved strongly suggests that OP was messing with something he had no business to touch.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    I don't understand this, or the linked article. Can someone explain to me what possible reason there can be for responding with disciplinary action when someone proposes an improvement?
    - ChristianGeek 8y ago
      You make someone above you with an ego look bad.
    - jorgesborges 8y ago
      I think this quote sums it up best: "I've realized that there were probably a dozen programmers on that ancient project who knew why the system was so slow and how to fix it. They knew, but they kept it to themselves because in that organization, there were some things that were more important than making the system better." The mistake was in assuming that code quality and performance always trumps other considerations. The title is misleading in this respect: it's not really programming advice. Even the phrase repeated in the article, stay the hell out of other people's code, is more about navigating the potential unknowns of a situation, and being in touch with what's happening around the office more generally.
    - baylisscg 8y ago
      When they've gone on an unauthorised excursion through some code that has say, safety critical or legal, concerns some off the top of my head examples. Hey guy's I've rewritten: - The dosage control code for radiotherapy device so we can remove that expensive mechanical interlock! - The data access layer of our patient records system! - How we calculate x in out guidance software we can go to a cheaper CPU now! especially if said code was rattling in the building around somewhere it might get into the code base.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
Though I'm sympathetic to you, I feel there is more to this story.
WilliamEdward 8y ago
You're clearly leaving out some important detail, which makes me think this is 100% your fault and you were being stupid, even though you want to play the victim
- ThrowMeDown01 8y ago
  One argument in favor of such an interpretation is that anytime somebody posts such an anecdote, and in various contexts that happens not infrequently, there is one giant thing all those story tellers forget: That everybody else only sees their side of the story, and that posting something that looks so one-sided "everybody was being stupid but me" is better not posted at all because of how unbelievable it looks, even if it indeed is true. If they had any good level of people-understanding they would in my humble opinion be much wiser to not tell the story here, or at least not make it look so one-sided, or add some disclaimers showing some self-awareness that shows they at least considered that they themselves are a key part of the problem. It reminds me of that joke of the guy who is driving a car on the autobahn and hears a warning on traffic radio about a wrong-way driver right where he is driving. "Only one?" he says to himself, "Hundreds!"
  - jhpriestley 8y ago
    Your comment and many of the siblings just read to me as random victim blaming. "Oh, you were mistreated at work? I bet you are lying and incompetent and were actually entirely at fault." the parent is relaying their personal experience, why would they have to add disclaimers about one-sidedness? A forum like this is literally just people telling "their side" on various topics. I've been mistreated at work and find the parent comment very believable. If you haven't been, then you are either young or lucky. Good for you but please don't just discount other people's experiences.
- dang 8y ago
  Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of what details someone else left out. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
haxorito 8y ago
Answering all questions. One thing i left off is the reason why I was in hot water: Everyone in our organization is really “rank-orientated”, I challenge their intellect and their baby they were proud of - it was foundation for our organization to even exist in company. Even though it was outdated, poorly designed system, that produced high percent of outages and heavy on maintenance. But it was not my place or position to do that. From now on I moto “not my business”
- hueving 8y ago
  It's also possible your solution wasn't as elegant, maintainable, or as performant in all cases as you thought. If you're going to approach upper management with such a hostile attitude, you need to run it by some peers first to have them poke holes in the idea and get onboard. Why I called your approach hostile: you phrased it as "challenging their intellect". That's not how good engineers pitch changes.
  - Viliam1234 8y ago
    > It's also possible your solution wasn't as elegant, maintainable, or as performant in all cases as you thought. That usually doesn't result in being called to HR and asked to remove everything from one's computer.
gbajson 8y ago
Similar thing has happened to me. I joined a security team in a Big Bank. During the first month of my work I discovered a terrible and obvious security hole, which was there for years. My manager took me aside and explained that they can't fix it, or even start doing anything about it, because the whole team will look incompetent. I was told not do anything and reassigned to the completely different tasks far from the team. After another month, I left.

jonnycomputer 8y ago

Sounds like a toxic company. Sorry you couldn't ditch them.

InafuSabi 8y ago

I do not understand why you were treated as if you wrote viral code which wiped all networked storage of the company. Did anyone ever say why you were treated like an infectuous disease after doing something good, which would benefit everyone?

jolmg 8y ago
The fact that he was a foreigner provides a hint. It seems there's a general fear in the US of foreign workers taking the jobs of citizens. I wonder, is it not possible to switch employers when you have a work visa?
- iratewizard 8y ago
  Or maybe more realistic and less paranoid: the code he wrote was more performant but significantly less maintainable. Look at it from a director's perspective. Technical debt from an H1b. Is he trying to maintain job security by being the only one who understands how a critical module works?
  - parrot_11 8y ago
    "Technical debt from an H1b." You seem to have jumped to a conclusion rather quickly. Even assuming for a second that the hysteria was because the new function that GP wrote is complex, wouldn't the reaction to that would've been "Can you write it more clearly?" instead of the hysteria and pariah ceremony?
  - watwut 8y ago
    That situation would warrant 10 min discussion with lead. Not this. You version is quite paranoid on itself - junior denied learning and shunned for a single mistake.
  - adrianhel 8y ago
    In this scenario the lack of performance was significant, so I would say it was necessary. If performance was adequate, different story. For example. We have a redux based content editor that is quite slow. It is however more than performant enough for the use case. I would love it if someone refactored it though...
    - hueving 8y ago
      You don't know how significant the performance difference was. You're just believing the commenter who thought it was without hearing from the company who obviously didn't think it was a priority.
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
  there's a general fear in the US of foreign workers taking the jobs of citizens Comments from our idiot president and his ilk aside, there is not. I'm willing to entertain discussions to the contrary, but this is far from my experience either here in the Midwest, or on the East Coast where I previously worked.
  - ChristianGeek 8y ago
    It’s not the case in Southern California, either.
  - throwawaymjabba 8y ago
    I worked for the US counter part of an Indian company in Illinois for a couple of years. We used to have town hall meetings every quarter. On 2 such meetings, I heard two separate American employees questioning the speaker about outsourcing more. He would be talking about how they are planning to spread out a project with 20% in US, 50% in India, remaining in Europe and some other place. In both the occasions, they asked questions that meant why only 20% in US or something similar. He always replied that's what the customer is willing to pay, that the customer has so and so budget, and this is how we are meeting it.

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago

When you presented what to your boss, exactly? Did you suggest "I can make it better, faster, more stable...?" or did you go ahead and make the change and say "see?" Were you in a position where you should even have been thinking about this system? I wonder what steps in this story you're leaving out?

jpatokal 8y ago
+1. The fact that HR's involved strongly suggests that OP was messing with something he had no business to touch.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  I don't understand this, or the linked article. Can someone explain to me what possible reason there can be for responding with disciplinary action when someone proposes an improvement?
  - ChristianGeek 8y ago
    You make someone above you with an ego look bad.
  - jorgesborges 8y ago
    I think this quote sums it up best: "I've realized that there were probably a dozen programmers on that ancient project who knew why the system was so slow and how to fix it. They knew, but they kept it to themselves because in that organization, there were some things that were more important than making the system better." The mistake was in assuming that code quality and performance always trumps other considerations. The title is misleading in this respect: it's not really programming advice. Even the phrase repeated in the article, stay the hell out of other people's code, is more about navigating the potential unknowns of a situation, and being in touch with what's happening around the office more generally.
  - baylisscg 8y ago
    When they've gone on an unauthorised excursion through some code that has say, safety critical or legal, concerns some off the top of my head examples. Hey guy's I've rewritten: - The dosage control code for radiotherapy device so we can remove that expensive mechanical interlock! - The data access layer of our patient records system! - How we calculate x in out guidance software we can go to a cheaper CPU now! especially if said code was rattling in the building around somewhere it might get into the code base.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

Though I'm sympathetic to you, I feel there is more to this story.

WilliamEdward 8y ago

You're clearly leaving out some important detail, which makes me think this is 100% your fault and you were being stupid, even though you want to play the victim

ThrowMeDown01 8y ago
One argument in favor of such an interpretation is that anytime somebody posts such an anecdote, and in various contexts that happens not infrequently, there is one giant thing all those story tellers forget: That everybody else only sees their side of the story, and that posting something that looks so one-sided "everybody was being stupid but me" is better not posted at all because of how unbelievable it looks, even if it indeed is true. If they had any good level of people-understanding they would in my humble opinion be much wiser to not tell the story here, or at least not make it look so one-sided, or add some disclaimers showing some self-awareness that shows they at least considered that they themselves are a key part of the problem. It reminds me of that joke of the guy who is driving a car on the autobahn and hears a warning on traffic radio about a wrong-way driver right where he is driving. "Only one?" he says to himself, "Hundreds!"
- jhpriestley 8y ago
  Your comment and many of the siblings just read to me as random victim blaming. "Oh, you were mistreated at work? I bet you are lying and incompetent and were actually entirely at fault." the parent is relaying their personal experience, why would they have to add disclaimers about one-sidedness? A forum like this is literally just people telling "their side" on various topics. I've been mistreated at work and find the parent comment very believable. If you haven't been, then you are either young or lucky. Good for you but please don't just discount other people's experiences.
dang 8y ago
Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of what details someone else left out. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

haxorito 8y ago

Answering all questions. One thing i left off is the reason why I was in hot water: Everyone in our organization is really “rank-orientated”, I challenge their intellect and their baby they were proud of - it was foundation for our organization to even exist in company. Even though it was outdated, poorly designed system, that produced high percent of outages and heavy on maintenance. But it was not my place or position to do that. From now on I moto “not my business”

hueving 8y ago
It's also possible your solution wasn't as elegant, maintainable, or as performant in all cases as you thought. If you're going to approach upper management with such a hostile attitude, you need to run it by some peers first to have them poke holes in the idea and get onboard. Why I called your approach hostile: you phrased it as "challenging their intellect". That's not how good engineers pitch changes.
- Viliam1234 8y ago
  > It's also possible your solution wasn't as elegant, maintainable, or as performant in all cases as you thought. That usually doesn't result in being called to HR and asked to remove everything from one's computer.

gbajson 8y ago

Similar thing has happened to me. I joined a security team in a Big Bank. During the first month of my work I discovered a terrible and obvious security hole, which was there for years. My manager took me aside and explained that they can't fix it, or even start doing anything about it, because the whole team will look incompetent. I was told not do anything and reassigned to the completely different tasks far from the team. After another month, I left.