This content was written on April 2nd. I originally planned to publish it a week after starting my new job. This is my own reflection on the matter.
Not long ago, a colleague (a long-time employee who was clearly favored, or else he wouldn’t have acted so high and mighty) made some unfriendly remarks about me in a group chat. It really pissed me off. His comments were along the lines of “your code is garbage,” “don’t ever ask me to review your code again,” “whoever wants to merge this kind of code can do it, I won’t.” Rather than expressing dissatisfaction with my code, it felt more like he was throwing a tantrum, using it as an excuse to vent his frustrations with life.
I have no motivation to discuss the ins and outs of this incident. It’s obvious that this wasn’t about behavioral norms, but just his personal emotional outburst. The deeper reason behind this, in my view, lies in the team’s chaotic management and unclear responsibilities. But the reasons don’t matter much. I’ll express my dissatisfaction with this kind of work environment through my actions.
What I felt throughout this incident was a lack of respect. That’s why I wrote “Thoughts on Internal Team Chaos” and “On the Etiquette of Code Review” to subtly mention some of what happened at the time.
Is “respect” important? I don’t come from a privileged background, so I can’t really expect or demand respect from others. After all, how others treat you is up to them—I can’t control that. Ultimately, it’s my own lack of strength that fails to earn others’ respect. So putting aside family background and personal upbringing, is “respect” important to me in this context?
It’s simple: if I can find another job, then yes, it’s important. This incident alone is a strong enough reason to switch jobs. If I can’t find another job, then no, it’s not important. When survival and income are on the line, this kind of grievance is nothing. If I leave this project and can’t get another job, that just proves my own incompetence. In that case, I deserve to be treated poorly—I’ll just have to endure it.
But I have no reason to endure this kind of emotional outburst from a colleague, so yes, I’ve resigned and already started a new job. This emotional incident was the spark that pushed me to polish my resume and start job hunting. Otherwise, I might not have changed jobs so soon—I might have waited a bit to see how the project developed. But because of this, I didn’t want to wait anymore.
Aside from the emotional trigger, there were also broader project-related reasons. So why was this the right time to change jobs?
From a project perspective, the focus has shifted entirely to AI, with almost a complete abandonment of the blockchain narrative. The boss brought in an entire AI team to take over. Blockchain no longer requires any functional updates. I also heard that the boss talked about downsizing—only hiring when necessary—and indeed, one person was let go. Though I wasn’t the one, it’s clearly a bad sign.
Internally, the team is poorly managed, collaboration is weak, and coordination is difficult—especially due to differing work schedules, which occasionally causes issues. The team is uneven in quality, and as people have gradually left, there are fewer and fewer of us. The overall work environment is not comfortable.
In terms of work itself, recently we’ve entered a state of doing work just for the sake of it—no urgent tasks, mostly trivial assignments that don’t really matter. It’s the kind of work that doesn’t make a difference whether it’s done or not, just so everyone appears to be busy. That’s also a bad sign.
Looking at the team’s future, everything depends on the Leader’s judgment—what to do, what’s needed, and the upper limit of what can be delivered are all tied to one person’s ability. That’s not good for the team. There was once a misjudgment by the Leader that led to everyone’s efforts going to waste. To be fair, the Leader is quick to learn and adapt. Once they realize a mistake, they make frequent and timely adjustments, and things are overall moving in a better direction. I respect that. If it weren’t for the Leader’s ability to adapt, I might have changed jobs even earlier.
All in all, from various angles, there were plenty of reasons to change jobs. So to sum up, now was the right time.
(Note: The reasons for switching jobs have nothing to do with my evaluation of the project or the industry. I had doubts about the project just three days after joining—details are in “The Economic Dilemma of Restaking Projects”. Even now, as an internal developer, I still haven’t found an answer. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to keep working on the project and hoping it would succeed. In fact, we insiders want it to succeed even more than outsiders do because our interests are directly tied to it. So I want to reiterate: changing jobs had nothing to do with the project’s merits—it was purely about the work environment.)
Disrespecting others really is a habit. During the handover after I resigned, he wanted me to spend a day doing something. I agreed and said I was available over the weekend.
Just looking at this exchange, I really couldn’t figure out what he meant. What exactly did he want me to do, and when? I had already cleared out a whole day for this, but he acted all indifferent. Did he expect me to sit in front of the computer all day waiting for his reply, on standby? I don’t get it. Did he think I should accommodate his schedule? I had already resigned.
It’s either a lack of respect or a basic lack of professional etiquette. How can something as simple as scheduling a meeting be handled so poorly? I don’t get it…
Thinking back, I’ve actually noticed issues with his schedule ever since I joined the company. For instance, during almost every morning meeting, he was “out somewhere,” or simply didn’t attend. He frequently skipped morning meetings and was basically unavailable during the morning hours. Also, between noon and 3 PM, he was usually offline for a nap. Then from 5 PM onward, he would go out to play sports, and was always unavailable between 5 and 7 PM.
His most active hours were from 10 PM to midnight. Starting at 10, messages would start popping up in the group, and sometimes he would even call me at midnight to talk about code issues.
When I first joined, I was already working a normal 8-hour day. But come evening, just as I was ready to log off around 9 or 10 PM, he’d get online and start being active, pushing work forward. As a newcomer, I had no choice but to go along for a few days. This resulted in a pretty high frequency and intensity of overtime during my early days, all because I had to adjust to his schedule.
Later, due to changes in my work responsibilities, I didn’t collaborate with him as much, so I started ignoring his messages. Anything sent after 10 PM, I just wouldn’t look at.
From what I’ve described, it should be clear that working with someone like this is really frustrating. Our schedules were completely out of sync—when I reached out, he wasn’t around; when he reached out, I didn’t want to reply. It made work difficult to move forward. The bigger issue is that the team seemed to allow this kind of behavior by default. So where does the real problem in the team come from?