[melonbar]

One of my buddies on the dev team I am on has been going through a very similar situation. He has worked there much longer than myself yet he ends up with most of the drudge work. Instead of working on cool full-stack JS PWAs and SPAs he is stuck putting content on WordPress sites and fixing WP plugins. He has on occasion asked me how I managed to get all the fun stuff despite being so new. My advice to him was as follows:

1) Communication is key, a lot of times management don't realize you hold resentment and a simple conversation could really clear things up. Make your wants known, don't expect them to just be presented to you.

2) Take the time to shine. Push yourself to impress those in charge. Demonstrating value is always a good way to get more responsibility.

3) Try not to take it personally but instead ask yourself are some valid reasons why they have made such a decision. Also try and ask yourself what you could do to help the new hire. It isn't their fault and would probably love the assistance.

In the case of my friend, although he is a fantastic worker, he struggles at times to vocalize his contempt. Instead he will brood. Do not do this. People can't read minds and at the end of the day it is managements job to do what they think is best for the company as a whole. Good luck, hope all ends up alright!

[gaius]

He has worked there much longer than myself yet he ends up with most of the drudge work. Instead of working on cool full-stack JS PWAs and SPAs he is stuck putting content on WordPress sites and fixing WP plugins

Your friend’s mistake is that he is too professional, doing the work that needs doing and pays everyone else’s salaries, while other more selfish people prioritise getting some more buzzwords on their CV. I have fallen victim to this mentality myself. It may be too late if he has been typecast, he’ll need to reboot by going somewhere else. But it’s a sad state of affairs that being conscientious is a career killer.

[DoofusOfDeath]

> Your friend’s mistake is that he is too professional, doing the work that needs doing and pays everyone else’s salaries, while other more selfish people prioritise getting some more buzzwords on their CV.

Seconded - I've had this experience myself. I tried to be the "grownup in the room", ensuring that boring-but-important aspects of software development got taken care of. This was also my first experience on a "self-organizing" team.

The end result was that coworkers just kept doing whatever parts of the work they found personally gratifying, and at annual-review time their list of accomplishments was a lot glitzier than mine.

I continue to struggle with the anger and resentment I feel for how that all went down, and it's hard to objectively assess what I could/should have done differently without having behaved in the same (IMO) unprofessional manner as my then-teammates.

[goldcd]

I'd worry working anywhere where being "conscientious" isn't appreciated. From another thread I've got it stuck in my head that there is "broccoli" and "ice cream" work - and yes, if everybody concludes that WP work is "broccoli", somebody needs to eat it, and for now it's the person who can eat it the fastest is going to get landed with it.. ..then ask them what their ice cream is and make sure they get some. And maybe most importantly, be up-front that it's broccoli and that nobody likes it - but it's important.

[gaius]

All managers see is that the work is getting done and no one is rocking the boat, they have zero incentive to look under the covers and see what’s really happening, then one day their unknown crucial engineer walks and they wonder why none of the self-promoting rockstars can do the bread-and-butter work, and what exactly those guys have been doing all this time.

[twoquestions]

How I was brought up, your wants and needs are utterly irrelevant to the company, and voicing personal preferences of any kind would have negative career consequences.

How would you recommend communicating these things to your manager without breaking this rule?