Hello! Unfortunately, my last day at OpenCraft will be on Monday January 24.
Ever since the epic with Autodesk ended, I haven’t been excited about work or happy. Once in a while small tickets show up that catch my attention and I can pour all my passion into them, but then they end…
We don’t always get to do what we enjoy, and I get that. However, for the past while I have been working hard at trying to resolve issues that are blocking me from the interesting stuff like the Workflow Manager, Developer Advocacy, or, recently, solving the recurring problems at OpenCraft.
There are so many reasons why I no longer enjoy working at OpenCraft. Some of these reasons are flaws with OpenCraft’s structure; meanwhile, some are more personal.
Reasons behind my departure
Flaws with OpenCraft’s structure
Members should do it all
OpenCraft requires everyone to pretty much do everything, management, development, documentation, firefighting, you name it!
Stretching people too thin and having them take on all these responsibilities leaves them stressed and overworked. Consequently, this takes the enjoyment out of these activities.
Members are dispensable
Often, it feels like OpenCraft comes first and its members second.
Members at OpenCraft have been playing hot-potato with their burnouts for the past year, at least! Members leave eventually, and OpenCraft seeks to replace them.
Surface issues related to the burnout are addressed by OpenCraft, but the endless cycle of burnout is still on-going.
My efforts are one-sided
Previously, I was trying to listen to the struggles of different members and their issues with OpenCraft.
I would make 121s with different members or just end up discussing things at the end of gaming sessions or social chats.
Eventually, I managed to identify a couple of issues at OpenCraft which were causing developers to be less motivated to work at OpenCraft. Some also were considering leaving.
That’s been going on silently, for a while now. It initially started a couple of weeks before the “Discussing Team Compensation and Possible Refinements” forum post.
I know that I managed to keep at least one member, who was previously considering to leave.
However, for this whole time, I haven’t noticed any significant efforts done from OpenCraft in order to keep its members and preserve them.
This became even more of an issue once OpenCraft started struggling at finding new members.
These capacity issues OpenCraft is having at the moment are being dealt with by increasing recruitment. But that isn’t the only thing that needs to be done on that behalf, members need to also be given incentives to stay.
My efforts are not well compensated
When I work at a company or an organization, there are different factors that compensate me for my different efforts.
Salary, learning experiences, good hours are the three major items that are aligned with compensation, for me.
I need 2 out of the 3 to be happy. Initially, with the work I was doing I considered to be earning enough and learning enough.
The hours, although 6 hours per day or 30 a week, are not that ideal for me. Good hours, for a remote job, for me are 4 hours per day or 20 hours a week.
However, lately, with the complex problems and the different efforts I’ve been trying to put towards improving other’s experience with OpenCraft and mine, I haven’t been feeling the same.
These complex managerial problems have been amazing learning experiences. I’m facing problems that I never thought I’d ever will. I’m also having to think of solutions that I never expected to be thinking of at the age of 22.
However, the salary no longer is worth all that trouble, unfortunately.
I understand that no one asked me to solve these problems, but that’s the thing about self-management and the flat structure of OpenCraft.
Someone has to fix it, and I can’t just sit there watching while these problems affect me as well as others.
What’s next
At the moment, there’s nothing next. I’m mentally drained.
I have been waking up for the past year not wanting to do any work. And lately, things have been getting more and more serious.
I’m choosing to leave OpenCraft because I need to take sick days right now asap, but there’s no option for that.
I can’t schedule a vacation because the whole process behind it is even more mentally draining.
I don’t want to be stuck in this cycle of burnout, with no way to propoerly recover.
However, I also don’t want to leave everyone else in this disgusting cycle as well. Accordingly, I’ve been working on a new propsal, “A More Scalable OpenCraft — Improving Self Management”.
The proposal, at the moment, only proposes the idea of “specialized cells” instead of the current generic ones and adding a new pursuer role.
The proposal’s main goal is to adjust the blueprint on which OpenCraft functions in order to provide OpenCraft with tools to sustain itself and its developers.
I’m hoping to give away all my roles, in the meantime. And after I quit OpenCraft, I’m hoping to continue discussing the proposal to ensure my ideas are clarified properly. Also, it will give me a chance to correct any of the flaws in my proposal.
If the proposal is met with good responses, then the next step will be to create a plan to apply specialized cells in a good way that aligns with the team’s health and OpenCraft’s sustainability. This means creating a new proposal for the initial cells and a future roadmap to continue expanding.
If that’s the case, and the proposal will actually make its way to the application phase, then there are two different paths in which OpenCraft can proceed:
- Assigning the responsibility to one of its members (a pursuer)
- Delegating the responsibility to me, as a Consultant