It didn't matter how polished our product was, he'd find a way to tear it apart

youve very succinctly explained an incredibly frustrating reality. it really helps to understand it clearly like that

Aurornis really hit the nail on the head about how a toxic boss can twist your work habits into a loop of perfectionism and procrastination. It's wild how avoiding criticism can lead to playing it safe in the land of hypotheticals, instead of actually getting stuff done. And hats off to the_cat_kittles and neon_electro for recognizing the struggle and the learning curve that comes with such experiences.

I love places like this because I can thrive quite happily on doing fuck all and getting paid for it. Edit: I made some logical comment about doing something useful with half that time but deleted it because it would be hypocritical.

Sounds awful. And I can guess exactly how that boss responded to any feedback or criticism directed in his direction!

This so accurately describes my own experience a couple years ago, down to the specific anecdotes, that I had to double check the username to make sure it wasn’t something I drunkenly wrote last night.

1. Use a issue tracker to report issues. If a ticket doesn't exist, create it. 2. Stick to the facts: what happened, and what should have happened instead? Remove all the noise such as blame, emotional reactions, etc. Less drama, more clarity. 3. If the root cause is something dumb such as the hotel WiFi, close the ticket as "can't reproduce" and add an explanation. You can avoid reading the text, then use a LLM prompt such as: "Can you rephrase this removing all emotional reactions and extracting only the parts that relate to reproduction steps". Do not waste energy on toxic people. You are not a therapist, an emotional support animal, a sandbag or a doormat. You are a software engineer. Unless you are getting rich you should avoid working there.

Be proud of yourself for surviving that toxic environment and eventually recognizing and overcoming the negative effects it had on your own performance and behavior. You’re a survivor!

You put into words something I've had a hard time understanding for a long time. Some people really do have a clear preference for people who don't ship. Out of curiosity, what kind of background did your toxic boss have? Is it technical or business side? I have a couple hunches for why this happens: 1. These people are dreamers and dislike people who bring them back down to reality, even if they need those people to actually build things. 2. They feel superior to people on the ground doing the building. Like they're above getting their hands dirty.