Dog Eat Diogenes

A Tech Worker's Descent into Psychosis

faang

  • The Long Night Afterword

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    2 min read

    I used to talk about that night like it was a triumph. A war story. The time I solved a problem no one else could at midnight and saved the release. My team called me a hero. But something else was happening. I never really recovered from that first crunch. It eroded my boundaries around…

  • The Long Night

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    2 min read

    While my first official breakdown didn’t happen until years later, I had a mini episode my first year at Amazon. Our team was blocked from launching the release candidate of our application. Three bugs, nested deeply in the code, were causing a break. This launch was critical to the org and had a lot of…

  • Prelude to the Long Night

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    1 min read

    Why did my mentor (anti-mentor) hurt me? I trusted him, I looked up to him, but he kicked down at me. It felt like he was trying to get me to quit, like over half the team did. But I couldn’t quit. I had too much riding on this job. I wondered why he humiliated…

  • Humiliation and Becoming An Office Dog

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    5 min read

    CW: This chapter details workplace emotional abuse and some suicidal ideation. If you’ve gone through something similar it might be triggering. Please read with care. After returning to Amazon on a new team, I had a new co-worker who talked to me like I was a dog. Short, clipped commands in the imperative voice, always…

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  • The Internship

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    2 min read

    I fell in love with Amazon during my college internship. It was my first big tech experience. My mentor and manager were excellent, and I thrived. I worked really hard and loved every second of it. I loved using Python and the Brazil build system. Learning from senior engineers and attending the Principals of Amazon…

  • Why Am I Writing This?


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    3 min read

    
I’m haunted by one of my first Amazon performance reviews: They were right. Why I am writing this I am writing this so you don’t end up like I did: totally mentally broken. That might seem unthinkable to you right now. It did to me too, even after it happened. There’s growing scientific evidence that…