I hate the word "hackerstars", the rest is fine
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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Sometimes I'm glad I was a failure. I will never be subjected to this type of success.
>start cyber security job
>am 27, BSc, MSc, 4 years of xp
>entire team is over 50 with one youngling at 45
>none of them have any formal IT qualifications whatsoever
>boss does not know how to read
>clearly just reads the first few words of a sentence and guesses the rest
>only writes in 3-4 word sentences without punctuation and capitalization
>only time anyone writes any detailed amount of text is obviously with copilot
>they refuse to use Jira because it's "too complicated" even though we all have licenses to it and there's a security project already set up
>have me log ticket statuses in a spreadsheet instead
>but only for 2 weeks, after no one checks it
>all communication is 3-4 sentence emails in threads with 20+ people 100+ emails each going back years
>boss proceeds to talk in a 1-2-1 about how he feels for the fact women don't get to speak while not letting me utter a single word in said meeting
>almost every time I try to add to a conversation in a group meeting it's taken as an attack
>team's main project is to put the password manager behind the same password manager
>half of them are constantly having very basic computer problems
>boss opens group convo on teams only to complain there's "too many messages" and that he can't keep up
>I provide summaries in a few short paragraphs but he doesn't read them
>Boss says he doesn't have access to a system but he's really just unable or unwilling to locate the sign in button
>I complete tasks, but they're never checked on by anyone or followed up by anyone
>sometimes I'm expected to elaborate in detail immediately on random things from 3-4 months ago
>at annual review receive complaints that I'm not doing enough but no specifics
>how positively I'm perceived on a given day seems to not correlate with any work done
>seems to mostly depend on how I look in meetings
>try to make small talk
>most don't seem to understand the concept
>one proceeds to show me his entire house, room by room
>it's completely empty and unfurnished
>wut.jpg
>ask them if they like to do self-hosting or play ctfs or hackthebox
>no one has any idea what any of what I said is
>ask one if he's seen movie_name
>Very awkward pause
>barks: "No"
>Drops off meeting because he had a windows update
>He uses a Mac
>One talks about crypto
>Huge crypto guy
>I somewhat jokingly ask him if he's got a stash of XMR
>he doesn't know what that is
Honestly bros I don't wanna be fired because job searching is hell but there's a part of me that will breathe a sigh of relief when I eventually am. Quirky star wars shit here I come.
Sorry for the formatting, I have to add extra newlines and backslashes to make it half-decent. this site sucks sometimes
they refuse to use Jira because it’s “too complicated”
Honestly, based.
have me log ticket statuses in a spreadsheet instead
I take it back. Good god.
You should spend your evenings playing red team and see what kind of chaos you come back to each morning
It was a funny read and I believe you. Thats how things are in those places.
>Drops off meeting because he had a windows update
>He uses a Mac
Now that's the real hackerman
Big brain excuses to ditch meetings
Seriously, that sounds like a person who perfected the skill of avoiding work. Something you'd laugh at as too ridiculous in a BOFH story. One should be honored to see such a master of his craft. I wish I had the poker face to pull stuff like that off.
Honestly bros I don't wanna be fired because job searching is hell but there's a part of me that will breathe a sigh of relief when I eventually am.
I’d start looking now so you can leave on your own terms. Job hunting might suck while you have one, but it sucks a lot worse when you don’t.
how positively I’m perceived on a given day seems to not correlate with any work done
seems to mostly depend on how I look in meetings
I have discovered that being liked is more important than doing anything. This appears to be a near universal reality, and applies to work, relationships, family, religion, politics, home renovation, economics, finance - you name it. Always be nice to your colleagues. Smile a lot. Be interested in their hobbies. Say yes to social time. This is how you get promoted. If you want to make it to the C suite, you need to put in a little effort. Not too much though. You don't want to become too important in your role to promote.
My cousin is an extremely smart and well educated woman. She tried for 6 years everything in her power to get promoted. Worked her fucking ass off.
When she gave up, started dressing like a slut and hitting on her boss she started getting a pay bump every quarterly review and inside a year basically made more progress in her career then the previous six.
That went in for a few years till she started rounding over 30 and her ability to look like a slutty high schooler basically fell off.
Her career at that company has been dead ended since. She bitches about it frequently. And complains the fact she was "too proud to show some cleavage" when she was younger prevented her from making more money.
It's fucking stupid, awful and really fucking frustrating. I looked up to her when I was young. So to see her basically break under the sexism of society is God damn awful.
I'm not sure which "pill" I'm about to take but I really think what you describe is less "sexism" and more "human nature." I've seen attractive men and women get promoted on the basis of their attractiveness and sex appeal. It is especially prevalent in customer-facing roles. For some reason, people buy more from attractive people. They trust them more. They're less likely to cancel contracts. They complain less. They agree more. Everyone just seems happier and more content. A slew of psychologists have a lot to say about this phenomenon so I don't need to rehash it.
I think sexual appeal is inextricably linked to being liked, for good and bad. Some people are born on third base. Some people need to work much harder to be funny and charming.
It's because when you're talking to a hot person your brain pumps out more happy juice.
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I've found myself in a similar, although, waaay less bad situation. Imho there are basically three ways:
-
Embrace the stupidity, do the bare minimum to stay employed, try to game the reviews, find meaning in your private life, side projects and hobbies
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Enjoy that you get paid for drinking coffee while it lasts, and spend the time you have writing applications and acquiring stuff that looks good on a CV
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Quit, whether on your own or by literally doing jack shit, accept the unemployment and/or worse job you might have to take. May or may not be an option, depending on the situation.
Please ping me if you have any job openings. This sounds like paradise.
How so?
That sounds depressing. I get most people are in tech just for the money, and I completely understand why.
But it still sucks to have nobody around share "cybersecurity hobbies" with you while working in cybersecurity.
Hopefuly there will be a bunch of open jobs when LLM chatbots die away so you can find a better workplace or start freelancing.
Wow that hurt to read. Thanks for sharing!
cybersecurity people are bootlickers
That is the exact opposite of my experience. Of all the coworkers and friends I’ve ever had who worked in cybersecurity, one was a bootlicker, while all of the rest were at least three of transfem, furry, weeb, and anarchist.
Edit: Ok, one of the transfem furry anarchists was a bootlicker, but only in the kink scene, not her politics.
> goes into field filled with nerds
> shocked that field filled with nerds is filled with nerds
> shockedpikachu.jpeg
nerds dont use twitter
nerds use your mother
I think the point of this post is how they are all doing stereotypically nerdy things, and then they are into Twitter
>field stereotypically composed of argumentative assholes
>members congregate amongst argumentative assholes
This is as surprising as finding my old human sexuality professor on tumblr. I mean, I haven’t, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
In my experience, the security folks tend to argue less than the other IT fields I've worked in.
Another unfortunate fact is that there are a lot of right wing people in IT. That's something I've learned in national conferences. I always hang out in places like this so I had no idea how bad it was, but at least 50% of the people I've met at IT conferences were right leaning. There's only 1 on my team. 2 if you count the libertarian.
As is the rest of society. There's nothing about IT that would make it more likely to attract left wing folks. There is that for FOSS specifically, but a huge part of the IT sector only consumes FOSS products without ever giving back.
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Yes we are nerds but we must have decorum.
Plus if you’re managing any real infra at all you’ll run out of names if you’re using Star Wars, even the extended canon.
Really: They’re cute until you’re on a screenshare with an angry customer and you’re trying to restore the wookie database to the ewok database. Then it’s way less cute.
Every character on screen has a name in Star Wars. For example: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Davin_Felth
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Names are arbitrary anyway.
I see the point of something like euw-69-r47s11-vm420, but a memorisable name is more useful if you are small/specialised enough that you need to remember which box does what.
Also, let people have some fun, the world is bleak enough.
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I know this story is fake because it shows someone actually getting a job in cybersecurity these days
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I'm on Twitter because a long time ago it was a good place to get contacts and industry updates. The only reason I'm still on Twitter is because I haven't used it in about 6 years have forgotten the password and can't log in to delete the account.
But anyway being in cybersecurity isn't about being invisible, if you were invisible you wouldn't be in the industry, you'd just be a hermit living in the woods. It's about being aware of security threats and taking precautive action for yourself and your employer. Me posting videos of my rat completing puzzles, doesn't compromise either of these requirements.
Meh, I like cute names like the next nerd, but I've never seen any in practice. It's all TV model number like codes.
Our servers are named after comic book/cartoon villains, and it's really fucking stupid. I have no idea what any of them are because systems doesn't keep a list that's accessible to other departments.
Makes it real hard to make SSPs without having to drag info out of the sysadmins. And we're an enterprise environment.
The most annoying usage I've seen was a smaller company that used stars wars names for email distribution lists.
"Why did you forward this networking ticket to Chewbacca group? It's supposed to go to BobaFett."
Gee, I dunno, maybe because you use cutesy, non-descriptive names for email groups instead of just networkingsupport@company.com.
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