end of an era

I think I wrote something a long time ago when I changed positions, but don’t know where I kept it; I saw snippets of this from very old accounts from reddit where I haven’t posted in literally years. So, writing a little bit here on reflections:

• regardless of what is sold to you at the interview or the onboarding, some things remain universal: there is always some level of office politics. It’s true in 50 person firms; it’s true at 2000 person firms. Where it differs is possibly the amount of time you spend having that overhead to manage, and how culturally inoffensive/offensive it is to ignore hierarchy in order to address/manage it. I don’t particularly enjoy a very rigid hierarchy and had come from a place where it was somewhat rigorously enforced, so found the change of pace refreshing; it only took a year or two to realize that what I had jumped into was essentially the same thing as before, but did require somewhat different tactics.
• not being in the primary/hq location is a double edged sword: it usually means little/no scrutiny or judgment of your work. It also means little value to your work as well. For early career, this setup is a boon for those who like to be flexible/playful as the cost of this experimentation is low; for mid-career this very rapidly becomes a drawback, and inevitably will be a dealbreaker for mid-to-late career unless you are cognizant of this handicap (or you accept it as well). Surmounting this is not impossible, but is a very costly use of your time; acceptance of the situation is a far more likely outcome, however.
• to someone already skeptical of your motives, there is very little to distinguish between “allowing autonomy” and “being completely indifferent” from a manager if there is little to no communication.
• if you are running out of goodwill: consider it time to move on. Broken pieces can be fixed, but most of the time you’re still leaky.