[dasm]

This whole comment thread reminds me of my recent experience at an Amazon internship. I was trying to make my way out of the deep end, but my mentor was looking for whose fault it was; when the party with the upper hand decides to play this game, it's very difficult to escape.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Workplaces with that dynamic are toxic. You can't escape the blame game - you can only escape the workplace.

I'm slightly baffled by the premise of the original piece. If you set a task and hear nothing except "go away and leave me to it" updates for a long time, instead of checking up on magic keys, isn't it more useful to have a detailed progress session? Maybe ask for an approximate ETA?

In a non-toxic workplace it should be possible to do this in the spirit of fact-finding without raining blame on anyone.

[a1369209993]

> Workplaces with that dynamic are toxic.

The problem with that is that, weighted by number of job openings (for internship/begining/otherwise-not-already-successful candidates), most[0] workplaces are toxic.

If you can find somewhere to escape to, go for it, but sometimes you can't.

0: The exact proportion one sees will vary, but basically bear in mind that if people aren't quitting in disgust, your own workplace is less likely to be looking for replacement shmucks.