6 ms·

Wow I would absolutely hate this. I'm not doing 20% time to trend shit for YOU on GitHub so that YOU can feel like you're doing something as a manager; intrudi

by sqldba 11y ago

Wow I would absolutely hate this. I'm not doing 20% time to trend shit for YOU on GitHub so that YOU can feel like you're doing something as a manager; intruding on and micromanaging "free time" until it's anything but "free". I'm doing it to answer a burning question I have about something and do some exploration whether YOU think it's useful or not. And before you whinge and bitch that I'm there to serve the company, a) if that's what you want then don't fucking act like its free time because it's not, and b) irrelevant disconnected ideas and the curiosity to pursue them are not only the indicators of your smartest and best employees they're also a precondition to keeping them happy and keeping them at all. This time benefits me. There have been plenty of HN articles that breakthroughs come from tying together these previously thought irrelevant ideas. And in my experience researching some side project always comes to provide needed knowledge somewhere else eventually, always. Just not perhaps in the short 30 second timespan and timescale of an idiot clueless irritating manager.

nathan_f77 11y ago
I also had the same initial reaction, but also keep in mind that these guys are paying your salary. You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation. You're still being paid for it, and it's not like you're being asked to work overtime or during your lunch break. If you want a lot of free time, then you can find a part-time freelance job and work from home.
- quanticle 11y ago
  >If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation. Then don't call it 20% time. Fold it in as a "spike", in the normal sprint planning process. The visceral reaction you're seeing to this system stems from the disconnect between the promise of "20% time" - that I get to work on something that I think is cool, without having to justify it to the company - and the reality, which is that it's just normal sprint work by another name. If 20% time is subject to the normal planning and prioritization processes that the company uses for planning out the rest of its work, it raises the question of why you're placing that time into a separate bucket in the first place.
  - _delirium 11y ago
    > If 20% time is subject to the normal planning and prioritization processes that the company uses for planning out the rest of its work, it raises the question of why you're placing that time into a separate bucket in the first place. A cynical answer: Other companies have heard that Google does this cool thing called 20% time, and they want to be hip too, but don't want to give up any actual employee-hours to institute it. So instead they just rebrand some portion of their normal work as "20% time".
    - cinquemb 11y ago
      But who can resist the lure of paying down technical debt during one's allocated "20% time" that was accrued in their job vs all the other things not necessarily related to their job that one may find satisfying and might make them more valuable as an employee or to other human beings outside of their job?
- this__guy 11y ago
  You cannot structure or manage idea time. Actually a lot of successful open source projects were started by single persons in college. Many sponsored or managed projects progress slowly, because management kills off all creativity and drive.
  - sqldba 11y ago
    Absolutely. I'm an administrator but I do a lot of programming to automate parts of my work. Some people fail to understand what a creative engagement that is. I'm not saying my code is fantastic or anything but it is an extremely emotionally driven art. Some people only understand clocking in, working 8.5 hours, then going home. To me, I might be working 16 hours 4 days in a row to fix one function in some code I use that is driving me crazy; and if I can't then I'm just not going to be able to do my job anymore. On the other hand once it's fixed it's one of the best tools the company has (in that it's doing something that few others in the industry are doing, even if... nobody except me is using or knows about it... because it's managing an aspect of my work and it's not important to them HOW I do it).
- calibraxis 11y ago
  > You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. [...] If you want a lot of free time, then you can find a part-time freelance job and work from home. Fully agree with the premise — you are a servant meant to obey orders. But there's another conclusion: try to set aside time for freedom regardless of what Big Boss says. For example, everything is negotiable: how much they surveil or micro-command you. Or if you consider yourself an adult, you simply do what you think best, with whatever expedient little tricks to keep the local bureaucrat happy. (Obviously, this advice is not intended for those who identify with the boss. Most know the ways the deck is stacked against them, for example bosses colluding to weaken their bargaining power, or simply being born in a time in history where they must be servants to have a decent life.)
  - Retra 11y ago
    My paycheck is there to make me considerate of my employer's priorities, it does not make me be a slave to them. If those priorities are misplaced, I have no obligation to support them.
    - sokoloff 11y ago
      Agreed. Correspondingly, if you don't adequately support their priorities, they have no obligation to continue to employ you. It truly is a two-way street and works best with cooperation and some give and take on both sides. Treating it as a purely antagonistic relationship is poisonous and generally not sustainable. If you think it's that bad, go someplace else.
- sqldba 11y ago
  I don't "serve" anyone. I provide my time in exchange for compensation and I do what I think is important with a little grey area that I also join in (for example, meetings). Ultimately though I decide what I'm working on and this usually works because I'm in touch with what's going on, I'm good at my job, and I want to keep it. However I still spend most of my time working on my own ideas of what's important and how I'm going to achieve it. This works for me and it works for the managers who are strong enough to let go of micromanagement. If the company feels that this goes wrong, or is out of touch with what they need, or simply (as has been the case once before) agree with exactly what I'm doing but feel the need to repeatedly "take control" and put structure on what I'm doing already, then this is fine and we can part ways. But I don't go to work to serve, follow, or otherwise be a slave to others. I would rather kill myself than live feeling like that even for 8.5 hours a day. No.
  - manigandham 11y ago
    Really? Seems like you just vastly over-analyzed the word. Working for an organization means serving them. That's the actual definition. It doesn't mean you're a slave. This kind of touchy sensitivity to completely normal words is what I don't want in employees.
bostonpete 11y ago
> don't fucking act like its free time Do companies act like it's "free" time? My impression was that it's intended to be free time to focus on projects of your choosing, but still things that will (or may) benefit the company. This is a far cry from free time to work on personal endeavors which you seem to be describing.
- sqldba 11y ago
  It's not like you're digging a hole in your backyard. It's meant to be (or should be) providing time to do something outside of management's understanding of what's important.
  - bostonpete 11y ago
    Sure, but has any company ever had a completely hands-off approach to 20% time? That seems unrealistic to expect for such a large investment. I'm sure you have to strike the right balance in order for that time to be effective but your initial comment came across sounding like any attempt by the company to ensure that the 20% is time well-spent is some sort of intrusion into developers' "free" time.
elbear 11y ago
Did we read the same article? What I got from it is that you can work on any project of your choosing, not a company project. Here's a relevant quotation: "To start we ask each person to add to a vertical list of project names on the left side of a whiteboard. These are projects the group can work on. It’s fine, and in fact common, for people to list their own pet projects." Also, I see no reason why you can't use this system and, at the same time, have someone work on whatever they want, if that's what they feel like.
- dasmoth 11y ago
  "Each person now chooses from their original three the task which consolidates the collective work on as few projects as possible." It's an "enforced teamwork" situation (the article is pretty explicit about this up-front). If you want to work on a personal project, you're going to have to attract some others to join you.

by sqldba 11y ago

nathan_f77 11y ago

I also had the same initial reaction, but also keep in mind that these guys are paying your salary. You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation. You're still being paid for it, and it's not like you're being asked to work overtime or during your lunch break. If you want a lot of free time, then you can find a part-time freelance job and work from home.

quanticle 11y ago
>If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation. Then don't call it 20% time. Fold it in as a "spike", in the normal sprint planning process. The visceral reaction you're seeing to this system stems from the disconnect between the promise of "20% time" - that I get to work on something that I think is cool, without having to justify it to the company - and the reality, which is that it's just normal sprint work by another name. If 20% time is subject to the normal planning and prioritization processes that the company uses for planning out the rest of its work, it raises the question of why you're placing that time into a separate bucket in the first place.
- _delirium 11y ago
  > If 20% time is subject to the normal planning and prioritization processes that the company uses for planning out the rest of its work, it raises the question of why you're placing that time into a separate bucket in the first place. A cynical answer: Other companies have heard that Google does this cool thing called 20% time, and they want to be hip too, but don't want to give up any actual employee-hours to institute it. So instead they just rebrand some portion of their normal work as "20% time".
  - cinquemb 11y ago
    But who can resist the lure of paying down technical debt during one's allocated "20% time" that was accrued in their job vs all the other things not necessarily related to their job that one may find satisfying and might make them more valuable as an employee or to other human beings outside of their job?
this__guy 11y ago
You cannot structure or manage idea time. Actually a lot of successful open source projects were started by single persons in college. Many sponsored or managed projects progress slowly, because management kills off all creativity and drive.
- sqldba 11y ago
  Absolutely. I'm an administrator but I do a lot of programming to automate parts of my work. Some people fail to understand what a creative engagement that is. I'm not saying my code is fantastic or anything but it is an extremely emotionally driven art. Some people only understand clocking in, working 8.5 hours, then going home. To me, I might be working 16 hours 4 days in a row to fix one function in some code I use that is driving me crazy; and if I can't then I'm just not going to be able to do my job anymore. On the other hand once it's fixed it's one of the best tools the company has (in that it's doing something that few others in the industry are doing, even if... nobody except me is using or knows about it... because it's managing an aspect of my work and it's not important to them HOW I do it).
calibraxis 11y ago
> You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. [...] If you want a lot of free time, then you can find a part-time freelance job and work from home. Fully agree with the premise — you are a servant meant to obey orders. But there's another conclusion: try to set aside time for freedom regardless of what Big Boss says. For example, everything is negotiable: how much they surveil or micro-command you. Or if you consider yourself an adult, you simply do what you think best, with whatever expedient little tricks to keep the local bureaucrat happy. (Obviously, this advice is not intended for those who identify with the boss. Most know the ways the deck is stacked against them, for example bosses colluding to weaken their bargaining power, or simply being born in a time in history where they must be servants to have a decent life.)
- Retra 11y ago
  My paycheck is there to make me considerate of my employer's priorities, it does not make me be a slave to them. If those priorities are misplaced, I have no obligation to support them.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    Agreed. Correspondingly, if you don't adequately support their priorities, they have no obligation to continue to employ you. It truly is a two-way street and works best with cooperation and some give and take on both sides. Treating it as a purely antagonistic relationship is poisonous and generally not sustainable. If you think it's that bad, go someplace else.
sqldba 11y ago
I don't "serve" anyone. I provide my time in exchange for compensation and I do what I think is important with a little grey area that I also join in (for example, meetings). Ultimately though I decide what I'm working on and this usually works because I'm in touch with what's going on, I'm good at my job, and I want to keep it. However I still spend most of my time working on my own ideas of what's important and how I'm going to achieve it. This works for me and it works for the managers who are strong enough to let go of micromanagement. If the company feels that this goes wrong, or is out of touch with what they need, or simply (as has been the case once before) agree with exactly what I'm doing but feel the need to repeatedly "take control" and put structure on what I'm doing already, then this is fine and we can part ways. But I don't go to work to serve, follow, or otherwise be a slave to others. I would rather kill myself than live feeling like that even for 8.5 hours a day. No.
- manigandham 11y ago
  Really? Seems like you just vastly over-analyzed the word. Working for an organization means serving them. That's the actual definition. It doesn't mean you're a slave. This kind of touchy sensitivity to completely normal words is what I don't want in employees.

bostonpete 11y ago

> don't fucking act like its free time Do companies act like it's "free" time? My impression was that it's intended to be free time to focus on projects of your choosing, but still things that will (or may) benefit the company. This is a far cry from free time to work on personal endeavors which you seem to be describing.

sqldba 11y ago
It's not like you're digging a hole in your backyard. It's meant to be (or should be) providing time to do something outside of management's understanding of what's important.
- bostonpete 11y ago
  Sure, but has any company ever had a completely hands-off approach to 20% time? That seems unrealistic to expect for such a large investment. I'm sure you have to strike the right balance in order for that time to be effective but your initial comment came across sounding like any attempt by the company to ensure that the 20% is time well-spent is some sort of intrusion into developers' "free" time.

elbear 11y ago

Did we read the same article? What I got from it is that you can work on any project of your choosing, not a company project. Here's a relevant quotation: "To start we ask each person to add to a vertical list of project names on the left side of a whiteboard. These are projects the group can work on. It’s fine, and in fact common, for people to list their own pet projects." Also, I see no reason why you can't use this system and, at the same time, have someone work on whatever they want, if that's what they feel like.

dasmoth 11y ago
"Each person now chooses from their original three the task which consolidates the collective work on as few projects as possible." It's an "enforced teamwork" situation (the article is pretty explicit about this up-front). If you want to work on a personal project, you're going to have to attract some others to join you.