corporate hell - telecom version

most people who read my shit in this godforsaken corner of the net know that i work as an infrastructure engineer in telecommunications industry(read: SRE + DevOps + network + sysadmin + system architecture + hardware, all for a single paycheck). i do genuinely like my job and the field i'm working in, but aspects that are not within my direct area of responsibility do aggravate me more and more as my experience grows.

i hope this small read serves as a warning to all guys like me entering the workforce under the corporate, which is basically legalized slavery, no matter how covered up it might look before and even after. don't expect lengthy explanations here, i'm so fucking fed up with this shit and all i want is to share some experience so less people get themselves fucked up in this corporate hell.

LAYER 1 - "i need to prove myself!"

after you've finally entertained the HR department enough through countless rounds of interviews, or completely bypassed it in some way(got hired on a referral, literally a cheat code) - it's time for you to undergo the process widely known as a probation period. it basically means you can be fired for anything at any point, sometimes without even a reason. yes, it's in your contract.

so, you might be inclined to think that "if i work hard enough - they'll let me stay and maybe even promote me!" - and you would even be right. but tread carefully - once you show your maximum efficiency at work, it will be taken as a baseline, and it will be extremely hard to throw the management off your back. so, don't overwork yourself just to prove a point, no bag is worth that much.

LAYER 2 - "i wonder how much the other guy is paid..."

if you successfully finished your probation period and are now officially and factually a full-time employee in the company - congratulations and welcome to hell! now it's gonna be very difficult to fire you, because the corporate has to follow all the rules and regulations to keep the reputation up. that doesn't mean they won't use their tricks on you - and trust me, it's never even personal, they do this shit to everyone.

exhibit A - most of the companies require you signing an NDA even before the legal labor contract, and it's sometimes bigger than all of the employment paperwork combined. in it, you will likely find a point that states you are restricted from sharing your salary with anyone, sometimes even your direct supervisor - only you, HR and accounting know how much you are making. this is especially true for the IT sector, which in the opinion of my very good friend is done in order to prevent unionizing of the workers. by his words, though rephrased:

there has always been an unspoken contract between the tech companies and their employees - we keep paying you shitloads of money if you keep your mouth shut and don't create trade unions. and now, with abundance of workforce for entry-mid level jobs, only one side follows said contract.

so, the guy who does the same job as you or at least holds the same position might be making double or half your salary - you never know. that prevents you and your coworkers from combined effort to negotiate everyone's salary to the highest of all, and then some. advice? if you can't start a trade union - none.

LAYER 3 - "how many fucking meetings are there?"

the answer is - more than anyone even knows. so, let's say you've been working for a few months now and got somewhat comfortable at your job, got to know your colleagues, maybe even got some connections in and outside out your department. finally, we come to the cornerstone of every version of corporate hell: middle management. these guys literally have to create work for themselves to seem busy to not get fired. they are not burdened with technical or analytical work, they don't need any certifications or PIPs to complete - they make this shit up for themselves and you.

sprint planning/reviews, agile shit, SCRUM shit, daily meetings, weekly meetings, monthly meetings, inter-corporation meetings, matter-specific meetings, founder/CEO speeches, HR-mandated meetings, PIP meetings, questionnaire meetings, department-level meetings, team-level meetings(wait, this one is actually an important one) - HOW MUCH DO THESE MOTHERFUCKERS NEED TO YAP? and yeah, attendance is usually mandatory, so you better have a good and recurring excuse to not participate in them, because 99% of them could've been an email anyway. worst waste of time there is, except the job application process.

also, you can try to fly under the radar and abuse this meeting shit to punch in hours into the time accounting system(oh, forgot to tell you about that :3) but actually do nothing, since nobody works during these meetings anyway and they usually don't require you to say anything more than 3 sentences for like 2 hours. sometimes none.

LAYER 4 - "are those people that fucking stupid?"

yes. you will meet many people who clearly don't qualify for the position they hold. "senior engineers" and "CTOs" who don't understand a concept of a straight line and will ask you to mount the equipment in ways only possible with non-euclidean geometry. myriads of "X managers" who will ask YOU what exactly is said X. and i sincerely hope you never have to work directly with client's management/triple-letter staff - you basically have no wiggle room between your NDA and their questions.

the only advice i can give here - cope. breathing exercises, yoga, alcohol, smoking, video games, gym, punching holes in a drywall - whatever works for you. don't keep it inside, find an outlet for all the rage and regularly blow off the pressure, otherwise you'll end up ragequitting without a plan or killing someone, maybe yourself.

LAYER 5 - "i fucking hate this get me out GET ME OUT"

at long last, we arrived at something that for some reason is considered to be a metric only for a startup's capital - burn rate. but i don't mean money here, i mean your mental health, so we better call it the burnout rate. whether you want it or not - you will reach the point when the job will be at best tolerable, at worst - unbearable. everybody goes through it, one way or another. but what's important is to figure out a way to make your job easier.

push for hybrid or fully remote schedule if your job responsibilities allow to be done fully off-site. steal company time every fucking chance you get, but stay vigilant. never work overtime, no money can buy the precious moments you will spend with a beer under a light drizzle listening to your favorite music. the only excuse for overtime is if you feel obligated to help your coworkers in a tight situation, which is management's failure at planning in 99% of cases - so yeah, don't leave your peers in the blind, at least if you're in a good relationship with them. people matter, shareholders don't.

and yeah, if you have a plan - just quit.

epilogue(and story time!)

as i finished writing this, i figured that it's not specifically telecom-centered, and can be applied to pretty much every tech company of certain size. but here's a short story that happened in the last two days, so it's actually about telecom and you get a grasp of what i have to deal with all the time.

get a call from a coworker, saying some random people want to put two servers into the rack under my management. i get my ass up and go up to the server room to see what the fuck is up. guys from another department want two dell poweredge R730xd servers mounted in my rack.

- alright, i have a few units that are free. where are the rails?
- ...rails?
- well, yeah, the rails
- uh, what are rails?
- ...
- ...
- the things that you mount the server with into the rack. those two long slidey metal things.
- ...
- ...seriously? DO YOU THINK THEY FUCKING LEVITATE IN THERE

next day. go to the datacenter where they pulled out the servers, call 2 hours in advance and ask them to prepare the rails for me. just so you know, it takes me less than a minute to take down two sets of these exact rails, because they are literally on a spring clip you can pull back and release the lock with just fingers(though it's easier with a flat screwdriver).

arrive 2 hours later. call the guy who's supposed to open the door to the storage area, since i don't have the access myself. says he's coming in 5 minutes for 40 minutes. finally arrives, opens the door to the machine bay, says that the rails are not unmounted yet and asks me to wait outside in -20C and borderline blizzard. comes back after 20 more minutes, opens the door and asks me to help move the rails from one of the server rooms.

after that - pass the rails to the guy who tagged along with me so he takes them to my server room. good ending, right? sure. TOOK TWO FUCKING DAYS, A WHOLE FUCKING CIRCUS IN THE DATACENTER ACROSS THE CITY AND TWO ADDITIONAL ENGINEERS. ALL THAT JUST TO FIGURE OUT THAT OBJECTS DO NOT SIMPLY FLOAT IN THE SERVER RACKS AND NEED A PHYSICAL ATTACHMENT POINT TO HOLD THEM IN PLACE. . ALL THIS BULLSHIT JUST TO DO WHAT COULD'VE BEEN DONE IN TWO MINUTES WHEN THEY INITIALLY UNMOUNTED THE SERVERS - LITERALLY TAKING THE RAILS WITH THEM.

fuck the corporate, have a nice day.