HR Downplayed My Work... Now Their Software is Barely Working
Posted by Ok_Hold_2686@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 209 comments
So, this happened during appraisal season a few months ago. HR told me that I didn't deserve a good raise because apparently, all I did throughout the year was "bug fixes and improvements." They said I hadn’t delivered many features, and features are what “actually matter” for a raise. 🤦♂️
Well, fast forward to now. Since I got the hint, I’ve been focusing on feature development only—just like they wanted. You know what I’m not doing anymore? Improving and maintaining their system. And guess what? Their software is breaking down more and more, becoming harder to use, with all sorts of bugs they conveniently ignored.
HR recently complained, saying things weren’t working properly. All I could do was smile and remind them that “I’m focused on the features now, just like you said.” It's funny how suddenly bug fixes and improvements seem important again. 🤷♂️
Maybe this will teach them not to undervalue the importance of maintenance next time.
metalanimal@reddit
Once they agree that you were right, you can then demand a raise retroactively.
one_tarheelfan@reddit
Raise first, then work.
blotditto@reddit
This. Besides when does an HR department get to decide how raises are handled for IT in their company? Do they also decide when the CEO gets a raise?
tashkiira@reddit
In some very large companies, 'critical areas' like HR, Health and Welfare, and the like have internal IT teams to manage their own stuff directly, that are only slightly affiliated with the company's global IT.
In others, HR will go through the metrics other people put in place and mete out the 'proper' responses. This usually happens when HR is disproportionately powerful within the company structure (like if the head of HR is the wife of a C-suite officer of the company).
Icy_Conference9095@reddit
Or, in my old company's case case you have the HRIS manager be an accountant, with no IT experience whatsoever. and no IT staff under him.
Couldn't help but laugh when one of the payroll employees came to the helpdesk needing help relinking their database connection in excel, because the 900MB 40+ tab excel sheet stopped syncing everything from the main DB.
Yup, payroll/benefits was being entirely calculated in excel for 1000+ employees. First sheet on the excel was a live-query that pulled every column and row for every single employee that ever existed into the excel sheet.
tashkiira@reddit
Yeesh. That's terrifying. Thousands of employees, and payroll on excel? when you have that many people, you get pro-grade software, you don't rely on Excel >.<
that much money being managed in a cranky spreadsheet program is just asking for trouble.
Renaissance_Slacker@reddit
I worked at a company that hired outside vendors to create a program to manage the budget for the Advertising division. One of the Marketing managers inserted herself and started demanding changes so the program would work for the Marketing division. By the time they were done the program literally wouldn’t work for the Advertising program and I administered a 10+ million budget and reporting on … Excel. It was a thing of beauty tho
Azalus1@reddit
Excel is extremely powerful if you know how to leverage it. Almost no one knows how to leverage it correctly. so once it's written by one person no one knows how to fix it.
Same goes for Access but that doesn't scale well. Great for small databases though.
jobblejosh@reddit
Excel is also designed to be good at number crunching and presenting data in a user-friendly way.
Excel is not designed to handle conflicts in access, strict rules about data validity, nor handling vast amounts of data.
You know what is? A Database/DBMS.
If you want something truly embarrassing, the UK government once lost a couple days' worth of COVID statistics for the entire nation because the statistics were being managed via one very large excel spreadsheet (Which essentially ran out of rows to hold data).
phyrros@reddit
hmm, we have a different definition of number crunching ;)
a few million values isn't a vast amount of data in most scientific areas :p
jobblejosh@reddit
Compared to a database it is.
Databases store data, and store vast amounts.
Proper number crunchers crunch numbers, and crunch vast amounts. They probably store values in a database or warehouse.
Excel does both of those to a limited extent because going one way or the other can be overkill for many applications.
phyrros@reddit
What I meant is that Excel or Google sheets or whatever taps out long before you ever get to the necessity of a db (ignoring that a database has a somewhat different job than just storing data).
If I have a lot of data i use HDF5 or even just pickle or a csv/txt file. All of them are a lot faster than a db AND they aren't limited by excels fluff. A CSV with a few gigs isn't a major issue - a excel sheet with the same size is problematic
vexedthespian@reddit
I remember that.
speculatrix@reddit
The problem was they saved the covid 19 spreadsheet into an old file format.
problemlow@reddit
Even just a python script storing data in csv's would be better than excel in this case. I'm often floored companies don't mandate decent level software and systems training, comparable to first or 2nd year university corces for all staff using their systems. So much time money and wasted effort would be saved. I'd even go so far as to say most companies could cut expenses in half if the average employee had a basic knowledge of programming and systems architecture.
speculatrix@reddit
Sqllite maybe, but not csv.
problemlow@reddit
I'm meaning more a csv seems less likely to my mind to become corrupted if some fuckery happens. Whereas I've read many stories of a excel 'database' becoming corrupted and irretrievably losing data
FunnyCat2021@reddit
I've had a few of them in my career. My record was a production query that originally took over 9 hrs to execute. 2 weeks later, it was sub 10 seconds :)
WhiskyTequilaFinance@reddit
That's how I once got a contract at a company, after they sent their Excel payroll file to payroll and didn't notice the column with the names was shifted off one row from the column with the numbers.
400+ people, $0.5M payroll and every single employee got the paycheck of the person alphabetically next in line. The chaos was impressive, because of course they couldn't really completely explain or they'd be telling people what their colleagues actually made.
InitiatePenguin@reddit
That's hilarious.
But they could probably just say it was random.
WhiskyTequilaFinance@reddit
Hilarious, and a hell of a cash flow challenge. That particular chunk of their payroll was on actual employment contracts, and they stated that any payroll error that resulted in an underpayment had to be fixed within X business days of the error being identified. Which is legit and fair, and what they did anyway regardless of contracts. They really were a decent company.
But any error resulting in an overpayment had a rubric about how long the employee had to pay it back. Bigger the error, longer the period. So they had 3 days to fix underpayments and up to 6 months to get back the rest. The clause was really meant for the occasion where the commission issue wasn't identified until much later, and wasn't something the employee would be reasonably expected to notice and return right away.
Thankfully most employees understood the issue and just cut checks for the net amount of whatever their overpayments were.
androshalforc1@reddit
Who got the CEOs check?
WhiskyTequilaFinance@reddit
Hehe, different department. That wasn't their whole payroll, that was just one team. But there were definitely people expecting $30k that got $3k and vice versa. Wild variations in paychecks because of sales commissions, which was part of the root cause for nobody catching it. Crazy fluctuations were an expected part of the data.
speculatrix@reddit
I worked for a company where they used Dropbox to store all documents in the cloud. They switched to Google drive to save money.
They accidentally exposed payroll listings to everybody.
It caused quite the kerfuffle!
Margenin@reddit
What did the alphabetically last person get? Nothing?
WhiskyTequilaFinance@reddit
The alphabetically last person was fine. The alphabetically first person got no paycheck, though. The dollars column shifted down by one.
nexus6ca@reddit
Health authorities I worked for managed their physicians compensation via spreadsheets until 5 years ago. 300 million dollars of contracts...
painstakingdelirium@reddit
This is more a trend in fortune 500. The reasons vary but generally are accountability, separation of duties and a shield to keep anyone from knowing how the sausage is made. Let's just say there was legal fallout when HR IT got comoliance audited and failed spectacularly
ferky234@reddit
HR IT is usually sectioned off from regular IT because they have access to sensitive information.
toadstool0855@reddit
One time the HR IT guys decided to print a list of company payroll. Forgot they had 15k employees. Used a public pinfeed printer. I stopped the printer and brought the paper to their manager. Suggested they might be interested in this and let them take it from there.
blk55@reddit
As IT, I have worked under HR and Finance before...it happens. From what I have seen, HR and Finance only care about the money, and looking like you're productive 😂.
HarryTheGreyhound@reddit
Oh, we have had that in my company. Especially "Why are IT and engineering managers getting paid more than shop floor and warehouse managers"? They didn't like it when I pointed out that their pay band for a application development manager would be about half that of the devs that person managed.
zero44@reddit
Correct answer here OP. Tell them you'll fix it when you get that 5 star review and retroactive raise.
airzonesama@reddit
Bug fixes are the new priority that OP has failed on, therefore no raise.
FauxReal@reddit
More like they'll take this personally and replace OP for someone at 75% of their salary.
GooderApe@reddit
And within a year, 3 people each at 75% of OP's salary...
FauxReal@reddit
When I was at Yahoo, my manager warned us that they're looking for reasons to fire people because they can get 3 for the price of 1 at their new India office. Well 6 months later, the day after a glowing review, I got laid off along with some other people anyway. By the end of the year almost nobody was on my old team was left.
EmperorKira@reddit
Better to just leave for somewhere else
WanderinWyvern@reddit
Unfortunately, it is far more.likely that once they have seen that you decided to "play smart" and "show them what's what" they'll just fire u and replace u with someone more submissive. Cheaper to replace the malfunctioning unit then to try and invest more money than needed to keeping the stubborn unit that isn't pwrforming as expected.
dbzmah@reddit
Keep receipts for the lawsuit
potential_human0@reddit
Based on the language OP used, I'm pretty sure they are from the U.S.
In the U.S. it is illegal to fire someone under VERY limited circumstances: due to a protected class (race, religion, national origin, creed), due to being disabled, for "concerted efforts" (trying to organize and start a workers' union). And that's about it. I may have left out one or two.
So, employers can fire you, on the spot, without legal repercussion, as long as the reason isn't listed above.
There are two legal categories that describe why a person was fired: with cause, and without cause.
With cause: worker was at fault of something (tardiness, poor performance, violating policy...) and therefore, the worker does not qualify for unemployment benefits.
Without cause: employer fired the employee (again, not for any reasons listed in the second sentence) for reasons not attributed to the employee. Employee qualifies for unemployment benefits.
WanderinWyvern@reddit
I'm afraid I don't understand what ur trying to say friend. Can u clarify?
dbzmah@reddit
If they decide to fire him for doing what they wanted, but still won't give him a raise.
WanderinWyvern@reddit
Oh. I see what u meant.
I doubt very much that they would put that as the reason on the record of employment tho. If ppl want u fired bad enough they will always find or make up something official to put in the box. That's just reality.
It doesn't take much to find cause for dismissal. Heck u can even just fire without cause and give them the 2 weeks pay in some places to b rid of a problematic individual.
WanderinWyvern@reddit
Oh. I see what u meant.
I doubt very much that they would put that as the reason on the record of employment tho. If ppl want u fired bad enough they will always find or make up something official to put in the box. That's just reality.
It doesn't take much to find cause for dismissal. Heck u can even just fire without cause and give them the 2 weeks pay in some places to b rid of a problematic individual.
oedipism_for_one@reddit
“as my raise is dependent on features I won’t be focusing on bug fixes, however if we agree that that bug fixes we’re important and retroactive adjust my pay (including back pay) I think we can work something out”
CurryMustard@reddit
I like to have day dream too
zvekl@reddit
Then they'll expect bug fixes AND features
Chakkoty@reddit
Yeah good luck doing your job without the guy who keeps the engine running.
There's people you just don't mess with. The people who clean up after you, the IT staff who make it possible for everyone else to work in the first place...and security. Basically, the people who have your company by the balls.
harrywwc@reddit
c'mon, you know better than that. they will 'value' you right up until everything is working 'fine' again.
it's the same old same old...
"everything's fine, why do we even pay you guys?" ... "everything's gone to shit, why do we even pay you guys?"
Avsunra@reddit
My house ain't on fire, we should dissolve the fire department.
cheesenuggets2003@reddit
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna39516346
dragonwithin15@reddit
..... Wait, this isn't an onion article?!
cheesenuggets2003@reddit
If one thinks about this in terms of insurance: guy wanted to skip the premiums and pay ("pinky promise, bro, I'm good for it") when he needed the service. I can understand why he might think that is reasonable if he were a child, but it doesn't take too much thinkin' to realize that all of the equipment and personnel have to be trained and maintained, and that properly accounting for the expense of putting out the fire would be far more difficult than just paying time and materials. I suppose that I can sort of admire the balls to make the request to hire them on the spot but he should have just learned his lesson rather than talking about it to outsiders who don't have to manage finances in South Fulton.
dragonwithin15@reddit
I guess my shock is not in the refusal of service when he didn't pay for it, but the fact that this is a paid service in the first place.
I have seen People joke about this very scenario as a means to mock how social services shouldn't be behind pay wall. So I'm just genuinely shocked to see it actually is a thing.
Avsunra@reddit
Yeap this is like letting your insurance lapse and then being shocked that you aren't covered by your former insurance company.
VIDGuide@reddit
https://imgur.com/a/KD7HdQI
Dalzombie@reddit
Ah, the life of a technician. You are invisible until you're needed or someone wants to blame something on you.
big_ass_package@reddit
"IF we never have to speak that means im doing my job well."
doortothe@reddit
Reminds one of a quote I read somewhere, “99% of the time, I’m wondering what I’m paying you for. That 1% of the time, I couldn’t pay you enough.”
VIDGuide@reddit
Or from the IT employee point of view:
“Long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.”
qqby6482@reddit
you know what the image is before opening the link
Bromlife@reddit
I used to have a boss that would unplug the server rack every year or so. Then over the next half hour we'd pretend to scramble and get everything up again.
Unethical, but the business loved us.
Mirvein@reddit
Perhaps the HR's aggressive incompetence was the cause of the enshittification all along?
Quirky_Dog5869@reddit
Wait what? Bugs are supposed to be features right?
PastFly1003@reddit
Document a bug, and it immediately becomes a feature. Don’t believe me? Ask Microsoft - that’s been part of their business model for decades.
RemarkableSource7771@reddit
Don't bet on it.
originalread@reddit
My manager has the right attitude with regard to one of my main duties. I provide support for SAP for our department. If he hears nothing about SAP from anyone, then I'm doing my job correctly.
justdoitguy@reddit
Think about how much money they spend fixing their own cars and buying replacement parts for them because they don’t do the regular maintenance.
Sharp_Coat3797@reddit
Definitely interesting and a revisit to your review with a very sincere (crocodile style sincere) ...."I wonder what would happen if I got a performance bonus and a raise to boot?" Oh and maybe having a "gremlin" visit overnight and for some reason the entire HR side of things suddenly not work at all while productivity in everything else in the company work albeit having those bugs and other things continuing and getting worse as you mentioned.
"Why I might have to put new product development on hold while I get on those bug fixes and other tech problems. After all, keeping the company working, 'MAY' just be a slightly higher priority than development....don'tja think?"
FlamingoSundries@reddit
I just love it when people who don’t know my job tell me how to do my job!
PARANOIAH@reddit
Almost sounds like you're describing Adobe software where products are getting more bloated with unwanted shite and old bugs are rarely fixed.
phsiii@reddit
For decades I've been saying that Adobe's slogan should be, "Great technology, shitty interfaces".
zEdgarHoover@reddit
I swear, Adobe's slogan should be, "Great technology, shitty interfaces".
-Dirty-Wizard-@reddit
When you do things right people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all
tacticalpotatopeeler@reddit
My favorite Futurama quote
-Dirty-Wizard-@reddit
It’s a good one. Defnintiy one of the most real ones.
dedokta@reddit
I worked in a place that had about a dozen very large high end printers that were always breaking down. I got friendly with the printer techs and learnt everything I could about these beasts. I didn't ask the fiddly service stuff that the regular techs didn't have time for and I dropped the call out rate from 3 times per week to 5 calls per month. Someone pointed out that I didn't seem to be doing as much as the last guy so I reminded him about how often the machines used to break down and that those days could return if I stopped doing the little work in apparently doing now. They left me alone after that.
aquainst1@reddit
Ditto.
I was always interested in what the techs were doing, so I could do a little troubleshooting and at least get a general idea of what was wrong.
With a few paper jams, some doofus was running a LOT of labels through hot printer rollers.
Yup, some of the labels came off and stuck to the rollers.
Other paper jams IT would come, take out the jammed paper, and it STILL would flash the paper jam error message.
Until Grandma Lynsey got there (sometimes at the request of IT!) because she could peer into the bowels of her dear friend the printer and find that ITTY BITTY TEENY WEENY corner of a sheet that NO ONE could find, and use her EMT long-nosed clamp to gently wiggle it out.
Yup. I loved all the machines at my workplaces.
ado97@reddit
Bro im literally in the same situation as you right now. I maintain our servers and 80+ Workstations. Ever since I started here, the tickets per day went down from 15+ to maybe 3 a day, or less (mostly just layer 8, but even then, I explain the stuff to my colleagues and they understand afterwards) . Now certain people in my workspace are saying that all I do is hang around all day and do nothing, which went up to our CEO. Now my work is kind of being monitored (how many times I leave my room, for what duration etc.)
Due to this im extremly fed up here and want to throw the towel. What do they expect me to do? Change our printers' names just for the sake of doing something?
potential_human0@reddit
You need to speak business to the bosses. Their brains are trained to understand very simple things. Money spent must = money in. They HATE to spend money on ANYTHING unless it will make them a profit.
Develop measurable metrics, or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), that you can equate to dollars. Before you started, show them how much time their employees were unable to meet deliverables due to system outages. Then compare that to how much system downtime is happening now that you are there.
KPIs could include: Resolution time for HIGH priority outages, Resolution time for medium-low priority issues
Also you should make a cost analysis for system reliability: "Boss, here is my analysis of our current system. Here I have determined that our system is 70% reliable. If you want to get that to 99% reliable it would cost this much $$$."
EmperorKira@reddit
Yep, basically make reports. Management love reports. Do less actual work, and talk more about the work you do, and magically Management will think you are more productive
ArchReaper@reddit
Those are the absolute worst types of coworkers imaginable.
Mind your own fucking business, Deborah, you don't even understand what I do. Maybe if you have enough time to spend worrying about how busy everyone else is, you might be the problem.
ado97@reddit
This. They do not understand what we do and judge. Our Secretary is going around asking people whether they have seen how often I leave the building to smoke. Even though my work is always 100% finished and I'd never dare to leave our house offline just to go smoke, like wtf?
Kriss3d@reddit
"Oh the software is buggy and unstable after I stopped fixing bugs?
I know what will fix that.. Adding more features!"
AllanCD@reddit
They're not bugs, they're features, dammit! 🤣
SouthernTeuchter@reddit
Undocumented features
Jonathan_the_Nerd@reddit
I once saw a picture of a VW Beetle with a license plate that said FEATURE.
zadtheinhaler@reddit
It's in Washington State, it's been posted a lot!
LupercaniusAB@reddit
There is one here in San Francisco as well, I’ve seen it parked around town.
not_the_fox@reddit
The secret is shipping bug fixes described as features.
Pilchard123@reddit
No, you see you shouldn't have written the bugs in the first place, so you're obviously incompetent.
Kriss3d@reddit
Ahhh. Why didn't I ever think about that! Great idea.
MoreThanSufficient@reddit
The clueless pretending to be knowledgeable.
Psengath@reddit
I'm curious as to why HR was in the deciding chair and not someone in your CTO vertical. They can facilitate the process sure, but are they in any position of expertise to decide what is and isn't of value in your role? Are your performance criteria not set out beforehand and with experts in the field? Does your company just wing it on the day with respect to people's livelihoods? I'm so confused lol.
Hopontopofus@reddit
Exactly! What sort of topsy-turvy organisation allows HR to judge the value of a technical role at appraisal time?
mikeputerbaugh@reddit
My interpretation is that a division head made the no-raise decision, and probably even gave the no-features justification for it, but left it to HR to deliver the message because they are a coward.
geekonamotorcycle@reddit
Oh boy.
phdoofus@reddit
Honestly, Google has had this problems since forever. New project? Promotion for you! Maintain and improve project? Oh we're sorry the project creators have moved on because we've made it clear that we don't promote for such pedestrian work.
SpringOSRS@reddit
no one cares about the trash collectors until they go on strike. it do be
the_ceiling_of_sky@reddit
We may have one locally soon. My brother-in-law is a trash collector, and there's been an ongoing problem between management and the union over FMLA. Union contract says they get it, but any time someone uses it, management suddenly gets hostile towards them, writes them up for dumb stuff, and tries to schedule them for shifts they can't work. BIL is a union rep and called them out on it after he took FMLA when my sister got injured. Last I heard, he was calling an official meeting with all the reps to decide on a course of action. I think he's more pissed off that his coworkers never told him about the problem until it affected him.
Thats_what_im_saiyan@reddit
Theres a lot of that at the union shops I've worked at. Guys will just assume that the reps know about things like that. Which I always thought was weird because all they have to do is wave down one of the reps. Ask em if whatever thing is on their radar and go from there. Takes like 2 seconds to get an answer.
Alderin@reddit
Sounds like IT: people just assume you know what little things go wrong that they don't report, then get mad when you come by, "Are you ever going to fix the...", like... Where's the ticket? Where's the email? Where's the part where I actually knew about this? You've been dealing with that for MONTHS? It's a 5 minute fix, all you had to do is TELL ME.
MyNameIs_Jesus_@reddit
I recently had to deal with this. My company manages all of our IT in house and the department has many sites that it services. Recently I had to go on site to resolve an issue and also work on any tickets that we had at the location since I was already on site. I was supposed to be there for two hours max and I did resolve all of the documented issues but they kept asking if I could a bunch of other stuff that they had never made a ticket for. I wound up being there an extra couple of hours fixing issues they’ve been dealing with for months on end
Rathmun@reddit
"Make a ticket and I'll get to it next time I'm here."
ScoobyDoNot@reddit
Running a small test team we took some business users through a fix for a production issue.
During the meeting they brought up a lot of quality of life issues that looked to be quick fixes, so we documented as much as we could and put it in a ticket. The ticket was being worked on within a week.
They were very grateful.
RedditAlt01@reddit
There's a surprising amount of issues that can go unreported for various reasons- fear of reprisal, lack of time, lack of understanding of procedure, that even in companies with working reporting systems, small things slip past.
This compoinds exponentially the higher you go up the food chain- which is why it's so incredibly important to check in with the line workers personally at least some of the time, or if one is too well known, have someone discreetly go in and report the actual state of things.
cheesenuggets2003@reddit
You mean that you aren't the Architect à la The Matrix Reloaded?
Alderin@reddit
They wouldn't approve the purchase request for the screens.
MoneyTreeFiddy@reddit
FMLA should supercede even the contract; if they are retaliating its a problem both under the contract and federal labor law
SmallLetter@reddit
Yeah I have zero union and just used FMLA for 2 months of 8 to be with my newborn son
qqby6482@reddit
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993?
Triforceman555@reddit
Correct
suziequzie1@reddit
I think it will teach them nothing. They're idiots.
ITrCool@reddit
Describes 95% of HR departments, by my experience. “But they’re just doing what the big bosses tell them to” is their universal excuse, when I know for a fact HR absolutely makes decisions and can control many aspects of people’s jobs.
I should get into HR for a living. That way I have more power over people and seeming immunity from layoffs and raise freezes. If someone ticks me off I have the power to make their lives a living nightmare without any backlash at all to myself because I’m HR. I’m all good.
caltheon@reddit
A lot of people in HR getting laid off right now due to the decrease in hiring. It’s is NOT layoff proof
Luvodicus@reddit
Congratulations, you made it to the cheeseburger!
https://amp.cheezburger.com/37027333/hr-refuses-to-give-developer-raise-by-downplaying-their-work-forced-to-eat-their-words-when-their
Significant_Fix_2790@reddit
If you have the reason in an email, have the meeting with hr with the ceo, make sure you have the email in that meeting
grrfuck@reddit
a colleague recently reminded me of this old adage:
When its working: "What do we even pay you for?"
When its not working: "What do we even pay you for?"
Linuxmartin@reddit
Could just not ship buggy features in the first place /s
Analyst-Effective@reddit
That's not sarcasm. It's true
zhantoo@reddit
I made some software at my previous job. It's approximately 1,5 years since I stopped, and I still have friends still working there - and according to them, there has not been a single issue with it since I left 🥲
Analyst-Effective@reddit
Exactly. Same here.
MonkeysOnMyBottom@reddit
Must be nice, we just updated out backoffice software and some of my automations stopped working because the some of the import and export functions aren't supported anymore
zhantoo@reddit
If it broke I would feel more missed 😂
New_Crow3284@reddit
In software / maintenance, you are invisible when you are good. Therefore it is difficult to get a raise.
Analyst-Effective@reddit
He wasn't invisible ...
No_Group5174@reddit
How does software degrade over time?
Guelph35@reddit
In my experience, it’s a change in use that was far outside the original design.
For example a process that works well when you’re getting 100 files a day might quickly break down when suddenly you’re getting 5000 files a day.
You might then say “why didn’t you design it to handle that higher load?”
The answer boils down to money. The people that asked for the process wanted it done fast and cheap. They didn’t want to pay for future possibilities, they wanted to pay the minimum necessary to solve that day’s problem, not the “5 years later” problem.
Analyst-Effective@reddit
It should be scalable....
fi3xer@reddit
Other OS patches, antivirus updates. And it sounds like a database type program and those can get nasty really quick if not properly maintained.
Dev_Sniper@reddit
„Oh you‘ve only been fixing bugs, that‘s irrelevant“… yeah these people don‘t know what bugs are or why they need to be fixed
Analyst-Effective@reddit
Who missed the bugs in testing in the first place? Or produced sloppy code?
Analyst-Effective@reddit
If you were a good programmer, the system would be fault tolerant and scalable. And minimal bugs.
They should fire you.
Dranask@reddit
IT always under valued.
ITrCool@reddit
One reason I’ve begun to consider getting out of this industry and into something else. I’m getting tired of being treated like a tool to be used when needed then thrown away in the corner again when not, with little to no thanks for it.
berkeleyjake@reddit
Your system is running slow? Oh, that's not a bug, it's a feature to motivate you to pay me more.
Pro_Ana_Online@reddit
Feature improvement idea: selectable background color. Make sure "mauve" is an option.
RoxnDox@reddit
Make it the default...
xdq@reddit
No, I didn't fix the bug where you get an error message on Thursdays.... instead I added a feature so you can choose what colour the error box is!
sethbr@reddit
There was one that sometimes failed on Wednesdays in September. Seems somebody allocated one too few characters for the date, which was immediately followed by a y/n flag.
No_Negotiation_6017@reddit
I could never get the hang of Thursdays...
Arthur Dent
erikkonstas@reddit
Wait wasn't it Tuesdays?
jelymc@reddit
Ounce of prevention vs. pound of cure 🤷♀️
OldBob10@reddit
It doesn’t matter what you work on. What matters will always be whatever you haven’t done, regardless of what the previously stated priorities are. The objective is to deny raises. You want more money? Change jobs.
ZeroMinus42@reddit
Or your work sucked and didn't stand for itself.
AbysmalMoose@reddit
The best part is if you’re not worried about bugs you can add new features at a record pace!
TinHawk@reddit
And you should! Because making sure shit doesn't break and keeping things running properly should be priority #1. They will only notice it's necessary if you don't do it for a while.
TigerDude33@reddit
What F'ed up company lets HR decide who gets raises? Probably one that will soon be out of business.
Informal_Drawing@reddit
Exactly.
HRs role should be blocking raises for stupid reasons you apparently can't argue with like in a normal company.
bluesqueezebox@reddit
He’s probably going to try and finagle a big chunk of that money when she sells the house.
SnooPeanuts8498@reddit
Playing devils advocate here… if your team is releasing features with enough bugs to keep at least one person doing nothing but fixing them full time for an entire year, your team might want to revisit the criteria you use to deem a feature as complete.
From their perspective, they’re faced with a Sophie’s choice of either making their lives harder with buggy features or making their lives harder with working software but missing functionality.
hornetmadness79@reddit
I'm actually kind of surprised they're not using total line count as KPI.
EliminateThePenny@reddit
I don't get why HR is directing what your day to day work.
HR is not the end all, be all at a company. They are merely a wing that executes a certain function and assigning IT work shouldn't be it.
ferky234@reddit
IT for HR is sectioned off because HR deals with sensitive information that has to remain private.
supermario182@reddit
Everything is working: what do we even pay you for?
Everything is breaking: what do we even pay you for?
Madness_Reigns@reddit
Of course it's important, they might also be aware of it. It's just excuses to not give you a raise. I would have been looking for a new job the first time around.
MRicho@reddit
No matter what is produced, if you dont maintain it, it isn't worth producing.
Historical_Note5003@reddit
Underpaying your tech support is a new level of stupid.
oedipism_for_one@reddit
The curse of IT “Everything is working fine what do we pay you for?” Also “Nothing is working what do we pay you for!”
frontrow13@reddit
It's always a catch-22 with IT.
2nd/3rd line support usually gets a 10th of the cases frontdesk get but people will complain they don't do alot even though it's tough/serious issues while the graduate answering the phone is restarting laptops and unlocking accounts all day.
HR in non-tech businesses don't know how to place IT, I worked in a place that had us under same pay bracket as vehicle maintenance and stranger still they went on strike and got a pay raise so because we were in same bracket we got it too.
crony1@reddit
"It didn't" - Narrator's Voice
metallaholic@reddit
They didn’t care you weren’t doing features. They just found words to say to not give you more money. Go somewhere else.
Red__M_M@reddit
Just leave. This isn’t worth your time.
tmstksbk@reddit
How broken is your company that HR has an opinion on what's important in sdlc?
ethnicman1971@reddit
So does the stakeholder not have a say in SDLC? This is not a SDLC issue but who determines whether OP has met his deliverables for the year. In this case OP is likely not in regular IT but HRIS where he works for the HR department doing IT work managing the HR App. In this case they (I agree that it is stupid) have the right to evaluate him based on their metrics. Again I do not think that they are evaluating him on the correct metrics.
fresh-dork@reddit
they don't have a say in the raise you deserve, only in the feature vs. bug fix and which features are important
ethnicman1971@reddit
They have a say if they are your manager as would be the case if OP worked in HRIS vs a general dev team.
RollFirstMathLater@reddit
Poorly defined KPIs will do that.
StrangeCalibur@reddit
As far as I can tell this is almost every programming job in a large company.
stromm@reddit
Roles and Responsibilities, and Scope of Work are very important.
Geminii27@reddit
Honestly, find another employer. This one has already demonstrated that they will make up shoddy excuses on the spot to avoid paying you what you're worth.
Demonstrating your worth to them in any way won't get the dangled pay rise, only more shoddy excuses. What will get you a pay rise is changing employers.
Capt_Blackmoore@reddit
the problem is how damn many companies have this same stupid short sighted HR.
Geminii27@reddit
Which is why you only look for the starting salary, not whatever vague promises might be made about future raises.
Capt_Blackmoore@reddit
and jump to a new job as soon as possible.
Geminii27@reddit
Absolutely.
ethnicman1971@reddit
this right here. if it is a choice between maintenance or features then you are short staffed. if the stakeholder does not understand that you need both, you need a better manager to get them to understand it. if they ignore it you need to start looking elsewhere.
Snoo-74562@reddit
Of course it can be fixed but those problems have been de-prioritised and are re categorised as agreed at your previous meeting. Of course nothing is set in stone if they would like to schedule another meeting to address the issues.
ac8jo@reddit
HR has spent so much effort and energy becoming evil that they forgot they have jobs they have to do. It's refreshing to see them reap what they have sowed.
RocketizedAnimal@reddit
HR doesn't know or care if you should focus on maintenance or new features. They just don't want to give you (or anybody) a raise and need a justification, so they are going to call out whichever option you don't pick.
MugenMoult@reddit
Businesses generally don't work in good faith. They will pay you as little as you let them get away with. You may feel like you had a win, but if you're not seeing a pay increase from it, nothing has changed.
theoldman-1313@reddit
I've seen this play out at many different companies. When you make raises / bonuses / promotions contingent on just one criteria, everything else gets ignored. And since it is very rare to find a job that only has to meet a single requirement, that means that important stuff gets ignored. I did work at one place that did a reasonably good job at making sure that they covered all the bases. Unfortunately, because of an abusive manager it was one of my worst jobs
StoicJim@reddit
They will blame you anyway.
Starfury_42@reddit
If your IT staff always seems be lazing about it's usually a sign they're doing their job because everything is working. When they're running around crazy - then there's an issue. I've worked helpdesk for FAR too many years and believe if it's always busy then the system or users need to be fixed.
Dookie_boy@reddit
Why is HR reviewing the work ? Shouldn't it be the department head who might be more technical ?
Woodfordian@reddit
All my working life I have never been able to convince any boss of the necessity of preventative maintenance of any type. Always the lack of short term cost benefit wipes my efforts.
So I move on. Strangely a lot of businesses that once employed me have closed their doors since I left. Even a rat knows when a ship is sinking.
blackwarlock@reddit
so you wrote shit software and want mire money to fix it?
StrongsafetyMike@reddit
HR, high overrated.
dbear848@reddit
I was a developer for a software company for years and it was always a balancing act between adding new features so we could sell more software and keeping the existing customer base happy by promptly addressing bugs. Support and marketing both had strong opinions.
Sharkbait41@reddit
"Everything is working fine! What the hell are we paying you for??"
"Everything is broken! What the hell are we paying you for??"
JamesWjRose@reddit
I would have quit, instantly.
xboxhobo@reddit
I would question why HR is even in charge of that decision. They facilitate evaluations but ultimately it should be down to your boss whether you get a raise or not.
SlippyA@reddit
Fuck HR!
suddenlyupsidedown@reddit
Make sure to get this all in writing otherwise it never happened and you're just a lazy developer who can't fix bugs.
Laughing_Man_Returns@reddit
if you start doing maintenance before they give you a raise, you will be back at the same appraisal season soon.
SomeoneRandom007@reddit
HR will say whatever is necessary to not give you a raise, unless they need you and are seriously worried you'll leave. At your next review, they will say you don't deserve a rise because all you did was work on new features and didn't fix the bugs.
Get a better offer and leave.
Specific_Till_6870@reddit
If tech support are doing their jobs properly, you'll only notice when they don't.
M1ssi0ner@reddit
This deserves a repost in r/maliciouscomplience
rmfranco@reddit
You spelled it wrong.
M1ssi0ner@reddit
Thanks fixed
teknogreek@reddit
Ah, no raise for you, you wrote the bugs in when developing. HR have this covered. BTW I’m totally on your side just HR being HR, and did anybody on a technical side advocate for your their horrific lack of knowledge?
NotoriousREV@reddit
When IT works: “You didn’t do anything, no pay rise for you!”
When IT doesn’t work: “This is your fault, no pay rise for you!”
EgoistHedonist@reddit
What a great lesson for them. When you start to measure and monitor performance, you'll get what you measure, not what's essential for the business. I hope this increases trust in your work.
q51@reddit
“What gets measured gets managed”
alf666@reddit
I hope you have the previous evaluation in writing, and you get the next one in writing too.
Then take it over HR's head to whoever that might be, and ask them if they are aware of why the turnover rates at your company are so high.
scyllafren@reddit
IT people getting the flak regardless. If everything working, then "Why even we pay you?". And when nothing works: "Why even pay you?"
:D
Mikhael_Xiazuh@reddit
Bugs are Features after all!
igramigru101@reddit
Get everything in writing. CYA always. Any requests from you or them must be in writing.
A_Cup_of_Ramen@reddit
Give us a follow up on your next evaluation. I must know if they give you the raise or use lack of improvements as justification to deny your raise.
Save your receipts from this raise for the next one. lol