DEV Community

Discussion on: How do you avoid feelings of entitlement?

Collapse
 
mortoray profile image
edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y

I guess it depends on what you mean by entitlement. There's a difference between honest expectations and prima donna demands.

You're entitled to a work environment that doesn't dismiss your knowledge, doesn't presume you're incompetent, and treats you with respect. You can expect an honest assessment of your abilities and are entitled to be afforded responsibilities commensurate with them.

You're entitled to be privy to the business and going-on's of other departments. As you acquire experience in programming you will naturally acquire know-how in those other departments. You should be fairly allowed to voice your opinion for things outside of your primary domain. You should of course be humble enough to know when you're outside your depth.

Staying humble is easy. I just look at my resume. Every listing prior to now is technically a venture from which I didn't get rich and retire on. Now I look at your current job, I'm still working, and not sitting on a tropical island, thus there must still be something I can improve upon.

Collapse
 
jonrgroverlib profile image
jonrgrover • Edited

If you have frequently found environments that do not dismiss your knowledge, that do not presume you are incompetent, that afford you responsibilities commensurate with your abilities, that make you privy to business goings on, and that pay any attention to your opinion, then you must live in a different world than I do.

My environments generally do few or none of these things. Your 'honest expectations' sound like dream jobs to me. Sigh.

Collapse
 
mortoray profile image
edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y

Sorry to hear you've had some bad luck in the job department.

Note that I've mainly worked with startups and small companies, so they were smaller to begin with. I'm also quite proactive in getting what I want from the company, and demonstrating what I can do.

Thread Thread
 
jonrgroverlib profile image
jonrgrover

I think my difficulty is that I don't fit the mold, and no one knows how to interact with me on a productive basis. I think I need to somehow create a new field of software development, and then work in it. I don't know how to do that.

Collapse
 
v6 profile image
🦄N B🛡

do not presume you are incompetent, that afford you responsibilities commensurate with your abilities, that make you privy to business goings on, and that pay any attention to your opinion, then you must live in a different world than I do.

It's a big world. Don't give up the search.