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tombert • today at 5:37 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

Not the person you asked, but I've learned that if you're not careful about what you tell your employers and/or coworkers that it will almost invariably come back to haunt you in the form of unpaid labor.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that (my 30's), and now I keep my conversations with my coworkers very utilitarian and divulge minimal information about myself. I try not to be a dick or anything, I'm polite enough, but pretty much everything I talk about is either directly relevant to work and/or so surface level as to border on "vapid".

ETA:

Just as an example, I used to have really bad sleep issues in my 20's that would make it so I wouldn't be able to get to sleep until around 4am, if at all. I made the mistake of bringing that up at work to my manager. Two weeks later I got a phone call at 3am because there was something he wanted to look at and "he knew I would be up". I was up, but I didn't really have much desire to get my laptop out and do work. I liked that job at the time and I liked my manager, so I did it anyway, and it wasn't until years later did I think about that incident and how utterly weird it was that I was sort of being punished for my insomnia.

My sleep issues have gotten a lot better now, so if someone calls me at 3am I probably won't hear it because I'll be asleep, but I remember that incident now and have it constantly spinning in my brain when I chat with coworkers.


Replies

pavel_lishin • today at 6:16 PM

I'm fine sharing (some) things about myself with coworkers, but I'm also in a position where if someone says, "So you can be our on-call guy for on-prem servers?" I can say "Absolutely not without a really big fucking raise, and I am not kidding, if you call me at 3am to come in, I will hang up on you."

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alt227 • today at 6:19 PM

The problem here is not divulging info about yourself, its not being able to say no to work. I will happily draw a line where my responsiblities end and if anybody asks me to go over that I will ask for a role review. Too many people get walked over at work, stand up for yourself and say no!

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lukan • today at 5:51 PM

I've learned that life is what you make of it. If you let yourself be used - others will use you. But if you showed your worth, but also showed others that you know your worth - things are different.

(otherwise where I work, I also avoid talking about politics for instance, but this is a different theme)

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