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How to make 20% time: Just do it. Don't tell anyone. Tell that asshole trying to control your work to fuck off. When you've got something, tell the right pe

How to make 20% time: Just do it. Don't tell anyone. Tell that asshole trying to control your work to fuck off. When you've got something, tell the right people about it. Watch the other assholes at your job trip over themselves as they trash your work that you already got buy in from from the right people. Publish it. Launch it. Put it on your resume. You'll probably get fired because the assholes will resent that you're not under their control. So what? Make getting fired part of your career progression plan. Start your new, better job, rinse and repeat.

modarts 11y ago
Id be happy to hire anyone who got fired under these circumstances
- jes5199 11y ago
  classic Id
- _delirium 11y ago
  I think most functioning engineering groups in large companies depend on a degree of it, and it's not even really a big secret, so people aren't actually often fired for it, except at the most dysfunctional places. Large companies tend to accumulate a certain degree of organizational "difficulty", but one thing that keeps everything from going to shit is that there is also usually enough flex in the system that engineers can fairly easily carve out some percentage of their total time to do things that, in their own estimation, actually need to get done, without having to get a bunch of management approvals for it. Management usually looks the other way (if they notice at all), except maybe to occasionally investigate whether anything good came out of these side projects so they can retroactively claim they commissioned it on purpose.
esaym 11y ago
post of the year, seriously. That is what I was going to say. Just do it. A few hours a day, just do it.
preordained 11y ago
Rinse and repeat? I could be missing something, but are we saying we should adopt the mentality that we are too good for any job we might find ourselves in? It sounds a bit arrogant to automatically assume that what you've chosen to divert your attention to has merit, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an asshole... I could be misreading, but your tone seems to veer more towards self-centeredness than empowerment.
- codeonfire 11y ago
  Hey, you don't know what it's like. Certain people claiming to be engineers have optimized on finding out what you're trying to accomplish and either blocking it or taking credit for it. They also have figured out how to punish people who do work that they are not getting credit for (i.e. authorized). This is their whole 'job' for which they get impressive titles and money for doing little actual work and having little actual knowledge. While you are sitting there coding all day they are off telling some VP about how they have you working on their project that was actually your idea and your sweat. The best policy for an engineer is the one I described.
  - sangnoir 11y ago
    > Certain people claiming to be engineers have optimized on finding out what you're trying to accomplish and either blocking it or taking credit for it This is not universal, perhaps you ought to stop working for dysfunctional organizations > The best policy for an engineer is the one I described Again, not universally applicable. It might be the best policy for brogrammers.
- sheepmullet 11y ago
  > It sounds a bit arrogant to automatically assume that what you've chosen to divert your attention to has merit Why? When you are knee deep in solving problems for an organisation you will often have good insights. If you can't take the time to investigate these insights then you wind up a low productivity grunt. Unlike the OP I am upfront about needing control over my workflow. If you need to micro-manage... no problem... I'll find a new job.
sqldba 11y ago
Agreed. I like the cut of your jib. IMHO denying orders to focus on what you're told rather than what you know is important is not only a hallmark to a good employee, nobody cares that you pissed off some random boss at work when you have something worthwhile on the resume (assuming you have a good reference though).
- onion2k 11y ago
  Working on what's important rather than what you're told to work on assumes that you know what's important and that no one else is working on the important project. Saying "this project isn't important enough for someone like me" won't just annoy your manager. It'll annoy everyone, because someone else will have to pick up the work you dropped. You'll get the reputation for being awful to work with, and that is toxic to your career.
lquist 11y ago
Zed, is that you?
onion2k 11y ago
So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you think the way to advance your career is to spend 20% of your time working on unsanctioned side projects in work time, writing code that will be owned by your employer that you can't publish legally without permission, all the while taking longer to do your assigned tasks and looking like you slack off for a day a week? And you think that if that gets you fired you'll move up your career ladder? Would you seriously hire someone who'd done that? I wouldn't do that. I'd take some of my spare time, a few weekends, to document the idea and maybe hack together a prototype, and take that to "the right people". If they're going to be happy with the project then it's better to do it without pissing off everyone else.
- windowsworkstoo 11y ago
  Cool, stay scared and not go anywhere. GP poster is gittin it dern - money, power and bitches will come to him.
  - dang 11y ago
    Please don't do this here.
- js8 11y ago
  I agree with GP. Can't really answer the hiring question (because I am not interested in being anyone's boss), but why not? Do you think that the way to advance your career is always do what you're being told? GP's suggestion, at least, makes life a lot more interesting.. And people willing to take risks and make their own projects typically will have better CVs. I would rather see somebody genuinely advance in the organization by genuinely improving something (and taking some risk), while taking time from a stupid project, rather than by taking credit for work of someone else (but that never happens, right?). And in fact it's the latter people who get angry, so for that really doesn't matter on whose time you do it. As for your suggestion, why is it OK for employer to steal employee's free time and not OK for employee to steal employer's time? We are talking about improvement to the employer's business, after all.
  - 11y ago
fra 11y ago
This comment is appalling, and so are most of the posts under it.
- colbyh 11y ago
  Agreed 110%. If someone feels this combative about the company/org they chose to join then that is toxic.
bshoemaker 11y ago
Possibly the most out of touch comment in HN history. Bravo!
areyouforreal 11y ago
What makes you so sure you know best? What if everybody within the organisation did this? Why wait until you've pissed people off enough to get fired, rather than leave and find somewhere that can accommodate your great ideas? Shouldn't be too difficult if they are so good. Or even better, start your own business where everyone gets free rein to indulge themselves as they please.
- sheepmullet 11y ago
  If only everyone within most large organisations could do this!
- codeonfire 11y ago
  >What makes you so sure you know best? Because I work on huge swaths of the business and know where the huge piles of technical debt and risk are. I also know that people that are not rank and file engineers are hired for their ability to look good not do good. They can make polishing a turd look good by selling it to executives and having everyone else polish turds. >What if everybody within the organisation did this? Then you get a high functioning organization that makes billions of dollars. >Why wait until you've pissed people off enough to get fired Leaving early is a pattern for top people. They accomplish a lot and job hop before the unpleasantness starts. It can take up to six months for an organization to react negatively to the fact that some engineer actually got credit for something they initiated. >start your own business where everyone gets free rein Yeah, this is ideal but you need three or four years cash runway and that is very hard to get. Incubators and angels only give enough that you become dependent on financiers who have their own set of goals.
areyouforreal 11y ago
What makes you so sure you know best? What if everybody within the organisation did this? Why wait until you've pissed people off enough to get fired, rather than leave and find somewhere that can accommodate your great ideas? Shouldn't be too difficult if they are so good. Or even better, start your own business where everyone gets free rein to indulge themselves as they please.

modarts 11y ago

Id be happy to hire anyone who got fired under these circumstances

jes5199 11y ago
classic Id
_delirium 11y ago
I think most functioning engineering groups in large companies depend on a degree of it, and it's not even really a big secret, so people aren't actually often fired for it, except at the most dysfunctional places. Large companies tend to accumulate a certain degree of organizational "difficulty", but one thing that keeps everything from going to shit is that there is also usually enough flex in the system that engineers can fairly easily carve out some percentage of their total time to do things that, in their own estimation, actually need to get done, without having to get a bunch of management approvals for it. Management usually looks the other way (if they notice at all), except maybe to occasionally investigate whether anything good came out of these side projects so they can retroactively claim they commissioned it on purpose.

esaym 11y ago

post of the year, seriously. That is what I was going to say. Just do it. A few hours a day, just do it.

preordained 11y ago

Rinse and repeat? I could be missing something, but are we saying we should adopt the mentality that we are too good for any job we might find ourselves in? It sounds a bit arrogant to automatically assume that what you've chosen to divert your attention to has merit, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an asshole... I could be misreading, but your tone seems to veer more towards self-centeredness than empowerment.

codeonfire 11y ago
Hey, you don't know what it's like. Certain people claiming to be engineers have optimized on finding out what you're trying to accomplish and either blocking it or taking credit for it. They also have figured out how to punish people who do work that they are not getting credit for (i.e. authorized). This is their whole 'job' for which they get impressive titles and money for doing little actual work and having little actual knowledge. While you are sitting there coding all day they are off telling some VP about how they have you working on their project that was actually your idea and your sweat. The best policy for an engineer is the one I described.
- sangnoir 11y ago
  > Certain people claiming to be engineers have optimized on finding out what you're trying to accomplish and either blocking it or taking credit for it This is not universal, perhaps you ought to stop working for dysfunctional organizations > The best policy for an engineer is the one I described Again, not universally applicable. It might be the best policy for brogrammers.
sheepmullet 11y ago
> It sounds a bit arrogant to automatically assume that what you've chosen to divert your attention to has merit Why? When you are knee deep in solving problems for an organisation you will often have good insights. If you can't take the time to investigate these insights then you wind up a low productivity grunt. Unlike the OP I am upfront about needing control over my workflow. If you need to micro-manage... no problem... I'll find a new job.

sqldba 11y ago

Agreed. I like the cut of your jib. IMHO denying orders to focus on what you're told rather than what you know is important is not only a hallmark to a good employee, nobody cares that you pissed off some random boss at work when you have something worthwhile on the resume (assuming you have a good reference though).

onion2k 11y ago
Working on what's important rather than what you're told to work on assumes that you know what's important and that no one else is working on the important project. Saying "this project isn't important enough for someone like me" won't just annoy your manager. It'll annoy everyone, because someone else will have to pick up the work you dropped. You'll get the reputation for being awful to work with, and that is toxic to your career.

lquist 11y ago

Zed, is that you?

onion2k 11y ago

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you think the way to advance your career is to spend 20% of your time working on unsanctioned side projects in work time, writing code that will be owned by your employer that you can't publish legally without permission, all the while taking longer to do your assigned tasks and looking like you slack off for a day a week? And you think that if that gets you fired you'll move up your career ladder? Would you seriously hire someone who'd done that? I wouldn't do that. I'd take some of my spare time, a few weekends, to document the idea and maybe hack together a prototype, and take that to "the right people". If they're going to be happy with the project then it's better to do it without pissing off everyone else.

windowsworkstoo 11y ago
Cool, stay scared and not go anywhere. GP poster is gittin it dern - money, power and bitches will come to him.
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't do this here.
js8 11y ago
I agree with GP. Can't really answer the hiring question (because I am not interested in being anyone's boss), but why not? Do you think that the way to advance your career is always do what you're being told? GP's suggestion, at least, makes life a lot more interesting.. And people willing to take risks and make their own projects typically will have better CVs. I would rather see somebody genuinely advance in the organization by genuinely improving something (and taking some risk), while taking time from a stupid project, rather than by taking credit for work of someone else (but that never happens, right?). And in fact it's the latter people who get angry, so for that really doesn't matter on whose time you do it. As for your suggestion, why is it OK for employer to steal employee's free time and not OK for employee to steal employer's time? We are talking about improvement to the employer's business, after all.
- 11y ago

fra 11y ago

This comment is appalling, and so are most of the posts under it.

colbyh 11y ago
Agreed 110%. If someone feels this combative about the company/org they chose to join then that is toxic.

bshoemaker 11y ago

Possibly the most out of touch comment in HN history. Bravo!

areyouforreal 11y ago

What makes you so sure you know best? What if everybody within the organisation did this? Why wait until you've pissed people off enough to get fired, rather than leave and find somewhere that can accommodate your great ideas? Shouldn't be too difficult if they are so good. Or even better, start your own business where everyone gets free rein to indulge themselves as they please.

sheepmullet 11y ago
If only everyone within most large organisations could do this!
codeonfire 11y ago
>What makes you so sure you know best? Because I work on huge swaths of the business and know where the huge piles of technical debt and risk are. I also know that people that are not rank and file engineers are hired for their ability to look good not do good. They can make polishing a turd look good by selling it to executives and having everyone else polish turds. >What if everybody within the organisation did this? Then you get a high functioning organization that makes billions of dollars. >Why wait until you've pissed people off enough to get fired Leaving early is a pattern for top people. They accomplish a lot and job hop before the unpleasantness starts. It can take up to six months for an organization to react negatively to the fact that some engineer actually got credit for something they initiated. >start your own business where everyone gets free rein Yeah, this is ideal but you need three or four years cash runway and that is very hard to get. Incubators and angels only give enough that you become dependent on financiers who have their own set of goals.

areyouforreal 11y ago