When a company reaches the point where ya need to do welfare checks and send out a link to a crisis helpline at Christmas, y'all gone fucked up so many times you're putting a band aid on a broken arm.

@UnicornPoo so... It'd be bad if I was talking about a company of 30 people?

Yeah....

It's been interesting. I think management have finally started to sit up and listen. The company has had ~10 new joiners during the pandemic, "encouraged" them to relocate to the office (my answer was "fuck no"). Those that did have spent 6 months going into the office occasionally, having at most 1 15 minute in person conversation a week and hating it. People have literally started moving back to wherever they were before.

@UnicornPoo yeah, I think some have been anxious to make a good impression, I've had a very down to earth view of "let's discuss my location when the office is actually open and functioning". Then I found out the rest of my team are in a different country, so I'm never going to relocate unless my job radically changes. I've also signed a lease where I am now to September, so I'm not moving any time soon.

most of what you say of your job reminds me of an internship i had at a startup. gotta say, big companies at least do that thing where they try to keep you satisfied enough not to quit, mostly because they can. small companies exploit the fuck out of their employees so they can grow fast and put on a competitive price

@darksideofyay I think the biggest surprise for me has been the level of competence.

Like, I've been half assing it a little bit due to health issues and stuff. But someone spent a month writing multithreaded c++, I reviewed it and hacked something together in a couple of days that was faster.

Think I'm *not slacking enough*.

@atheist y'know, a coworker once said "i used to think the code was really bad, but as time went on i realized it wasn't really the programmer's fault, it's just how the company works" and it's often true. if things are in disarray, short deadlines, lack of testing and documentation, i can hardly ever blame the people writing the code

not to mention that low morale has a huge impact in quality