How long is too long?
I'm in a group that I've tried to get moving for the last year. And when I say moving, I mean producing. Shipping. Delivering. I don't claim to know how hard it is to make really nice UI/UX systems, but it seems to me that it shouldn't take as long as it's been taking the current group I'm in. And I'm not alone in this thought.
I've talked to the two previous managers, and their managers, and their manager - and I'm wondering if I'm just being dense, or if I'm now being impatient? If I step back a bit, it's clear from those around me that the good talent from The Shop is leaving. Lots and lots of good talent is just walking out the door to join smaller companies, bigger companies, different markets - they are really just all over the place. But it's clear - there's a Brain Drain going on.
But maybe it's the natural progressing of things. Maybe they really valued something about the earlier days in The Shop, and they see it as an irreversible trend. If that's the case, then I'm being dense because all the evidence in front of me is saying that the quality of my work life, and therefore my life life, is going downhill - fast.
Yet I have to wonder... am I just looking for an excuse? Should I give this third manager more time? Maybe he really will turn it around like he says? Then again, what makes him special where the other two have tried and failed? Do I really think this guys is that much different? Does he have any more power or influence?
If not, then even if I give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume everything he says is 100% honest and he does really want to change things, what makes me think he's actually going to be able to do it?
I've talked to him about it, and said I've tried for a year, and come to realize it's just not changing, and I want to be on a team that Ships Stuff. That's what I enjoy doing. I'm just not sure I have the energy anymore to put up with this - and the changes he wants to make. He'll turn the team into a Hadoop/Spark query-builder team... I'm just not into that.
We'll have to see how things play out in the coming days.