This is a submission for the 2026 WeCoded Challenge: Echoes of Experience
"I don't know which box to put you in."
I've been hearing those word...
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Ooops! I bet things only escalated after that
Wow, Pascal. I feel the same in my coding career (of course with less job experiences than you. Impressive, by the way) and outside it. I consider myself someone curious. My curiosity took me to Math, coding, and now writing. That's why writing my bio or an about page is hard. I like to say "I'm a simple man finding his way thru the galaxy."
Great writing!
"Finding his way thru the galaxy" — that's a better bio than most people manage.
And yes, the tension escalated. It always does when someone can't afford to be wrong.
Curiosity is the thread, isn't it? Math, code, writing — different surfaces, same reflex. You follow the problem wherever it leads.
I think I should make it my official bio :D
Lesson learned over here too.
Yes! It took like 10 years (and a burnout episode) to figure that out. Better late than never.
Ten years and a burnout to figure it out — that's not late. That's the actual cost of the lesson.
Make it your official bio. Seriously.
You convinced me. I just did it. :P
The ones who couldn't be categorised are the only ones worth learning from.
The younger generation just hasn't figured that out yet. Some of them will.
I know I am.
Being unboxable forces you to see the whole system — because nobody ever handed you a lane to stay in.
But it also takes time. And life. The unboxable ones don't just think differently. They've lived differently. That's the part that can't be taught in a course or copied from a tutorial.
Some of the younger generation will get there. The ones who are already asking the uncomfortable questions probably already know.
The B2B platform story is the one that stays with me. You solve the problem — 5 thousand visits, every meeting scheduled, the platform holds and they fire you the next day. The labour court agreeing doesn't fix anything. It just confirms what you already knew: the system has a process for dealing with you after the fact too.
What strikes me reading all 11 exhibits is that the pattern isn't incompetence on their side. It's threat. You didn't just solve the problem. you made visible that it could have been solved earlier, by someone already in the room and it wasn't. That's the thing organisations can't forgive.
The peg isn't the problem. It never was. The problem is what a round peg implies about the people who've been swinging the hammer.
That's exactly it. And you've put it better than I did.
I never framed it that way consciously — but yes. The threat isn't the peg. It's the mirror.
When you solve something that's been broken for years, you're not just fixing a system. You're making a statement about everyone who lived with the problem and called it normal.
The labour court didn't fix anything. You're right about that too. It just added a line to the story.
"The mirror" is the right word. I didn't have it either until you named it.
The ones who lived with it longest are the most threatened not because they're malicious but because the longer you accept a broken system, the more your identity depends on it staying broken. Fixing it doesn't just solve a problem. It retroactively changes what the last five years meant.
That's why the door comes so fast after the launch.
That's the sentence I didn't have.
Hey Pascal,
the question is more like: why is this (still) relevant to you?
Because it is irrational and unfair? Yes it is. So what?
You won't change people that don't want to change. It is as simple as that.
I know the language in my answer is quite hard, but as someone who was in exactly the same situation for a very long time, I can tell you this:
It is YOUR expectation that people see your qualities that disappoint and hurt you. Let go of the expectations, and life will be much more carefree and from time to time you'll be pleasantly surprised :)
All the best from Vienna,
Ben
Hey Ben, thanks for the kind words from Vienna.
I hear you — and I think the article may have read as frustration. It wasn't meant to.
I let go of that expectation a long time ago. I have no illusions about how the game is played, or who usually wins it. Sharks do fine. Competence is optional.
What stays with me isn't the lack of recognition. It's something else: the regret of not sharing. Not contributing. Being called in to fix things, then shown the door before anything can be transmitted.
That's not hurt. That's waste.
The article isn't a complaint. It's an observation. The peg is still round, the hole is still square — and I've stopped trying to fit. But I reserve the right to point at the hole.
All the best back,
Pascal
" But I reserve the right to point at the hole." - a noble endeavour! I have to remember that phrase.
Your answer expanded on what i felt before already.
I can feel the pain of seeing people going out of their way to ignore things that would only benefit them, just "because".
But hey, at least you did your thing and it was good, right?
Keep the faith :)
That phrase earned its place the hard way. Thirty years of evidence.
And yes — the work was good. That part I'm sure of.
wow