4 ms·

Agreed. And I'm increasingly tending to think that the stuck-thinking-about-the-tricky-stuff phase is the part of the game I find most satisfying. A lot of te

Agreed. And I'm increasingly tending to think that the stuck-thinking-about-the-tricky-stuff phase is the part of the game I find most satisfying. A lot of textbook management techniques seem hellbent on trying to force steady productivity instead of punctuated equilibrium. Not the recipe for a satisfying environment.

GuiA 9y ago
I once had a manager ask me to email him a progress report every day; and every hour or two, he'd make a point of interrupting me to ask me "so how's <current_task> going?" Sounds like something straight of office space, but that was my life for a while. Least productive job I've ever had because of that (well, and the myriad other little toxic/passive aggressive behaviors he had). He had a Stanford MBA too, which convinced me of how useless MBAs must be. Because if you make it through one of the top programs in "business administration" in the world and still manage like that, you might as well have an MD from Harvard and still believe bloodletting is a viable treatment for illnesses.
- Alysha3434 9y ago
  I get paid over $95 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I've been doing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJ3KWPnqqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJ3KWPnqqs
- dasmoth 9y ago
  I once had a manager ask me to email him a progress report every day; This seems to have become very nearly normalised in the guise of daily stand ups. Some would argue it's less intrusive if it's for "the team" rather than for an individual manager, but I'm not convinced myself. and every hour or two, he'd make a point of interrupting me to ask me "so how's <current_task> going?" Similarly, in environments where tasks are getting broken down into tickets that are only expected to take a few hours, there's a similar level of oversight (although hopefully a bit less disruptive than hourly shoulder-taps, I agree).
  - everyone 9y ago
    I worked for a startup that grew up around me. We started without any project managers and such and they got introduced as the team grew and grew. I would just make tasks like "figure out how to do X", "look into this framework Y", "write a really good SO post for the bug we came across in library Z" . Worked fine, tho the PM for my project was sound.
  - wry_discontent 9y ago
    I'm at the first job I've ever had that didn't do daily standups and it's liberating. I've never been more productive at work. Maybe once a week my manager comes by and asks me how something is going. I give him a high level sketch and a time estimate. He goes along on his way after that.
- ww520 9y ago
  He's treating you like a cog in a manufacturing plant, which he can "optimize" at will. MBA programs often teach people that. He doesn't understanding creative work or thinking heavy work "appear" to be non-working but it's essential.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    Why does asking how someone is doing mean you're a cog, or that you're in trouble if you're still doing research? Part of what a supervisor does is track progress across a whole team so they can keep other parts of the group appraised. Another important job is helping people make tradeoffs between perfect and done as the situation on the ground changes. Both of those require asking "how's it going?"
    - ww520 9y ago
      > I once had a manager ask me to email him a progress report every day; and every hour or two, he'd make a point of interrupting me to ask me "so how's <current_task> going?" Asking a developer's status progress everyday or every hour? That shows the manager has absolutely no clue how development works. Period. Developers don't need a manager to "help" them make tradeoff on a daily basis. Developers need managers to back the fuck off to let them alone to concentrate on the mentally taxing work at hand.
- eru 9y ago
  I guess the MBA is there to facilitate your professional development, not to make you more productive. And what you have to do in order to look good to your manager or manager's manager's manager is different than what you have to do to be productive. Your boss was perhaps just doing the former?
- teyc 9y ago
  Here are some possible explanation for the behaviour. There might be other urgent fires burning for the past week and he is getting nervous and trying to figure out whether he needs to reschedule. He also has to manage up and set expectations when the whole project is going to be done. He might be concerned you are gold plating an otherwise simple task. He might think you are stuck and trying to figure things out on your own. You could help him by letting him have a sense of where you are, and whether there is something more pressing that he needs to talk about. Perhaps he has access to people/equipment/money that can accelerate your work.
  - bojan 9y ago
    The manager in question, were he a good one, should also be able to clearly and timely communicate if any or all of these things apply.
heymijo 9y ago
"A lot of textbook management techniques..." Can you unpack this? Would like to hear more.
- dasmoth 9y ago
  "Textbook" was possibly more a nervous tic than a statement of fact -- I've not read a lot of management textbooks... However, whenever I see generalist managers at work, there always seems to be massive emphasis on schedule risk and at least in organisation I've been in, the proposed mitigation is always regular status meetings (and perhaps other forms of check-in as well). This seems to have been almost entirely normalised in the software world, particularly anywhere that's gone down the agile pathway: fine-grained tickets in an issue tracker (or possibly cards on the wall -- but haven't ever seen that one in action) and a daily standup with an explicit goal of making sure nobody is "spinning their wheels".
  - eru 9y ago
    One problem is that 'agile' has been taken over by management types.
  - sverige 9y ago
    > However, whenever I see generalist managers at work, there always seems to be massive emphasis on schedule risk and at least in organisation I've been in, the proposed mitigation is always regular status meetings (and perhaps other forms of check-in as well). I think the reason for that behavior is because they don't want to be caught unawares when some deadline is missed. In other words, one of the metrics they are measured on is meeting deadlines, which of course pushes schedule risk to the top of the pile. There's merit to that, but that has to be balanced with the quality of the product. The blind spot for such managers is that constant check-ins and updates on progress too frequently interrupt the flow of people who need time to think things through. Adding pressure at the wrong point can possibly ruin the quality of the final product.
    - ScottBurson 9y ago

GuiA 9y ago

I once had a manager ask me to email him a progress report every day; and every hour or two, he'd make a point of interrupting me to ask me "so how's <current_task> going?" Sounds like something straight of office space, but that was my life for a while. Least productive job I've ever had because of that (well, and the myriad other little toxic/passive aggressive behaviors he had). He had a Stanford MBA too, which convinced me of how useless MBAs must be. Because if you make it through one of the top programs in "business administration" in the world and still manage like that, you might as well have an MD from Harvard and still believe bloodletting is a viable treatment for illnesses.

Alysha3434 9y ago
I get paid over $95 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I've been doing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJ3KWPnqqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJ3KWPnqqs
dasmoth 9y ago
I once had a manager ask me to email him a progress report every day; This seems to have become very nearly normalised in the guise of daily stand ups. Some would argue it's less intrusive if it's for "the team" rather than for an individual manager, but I'm not convinced myself. and every hour or two, he'd make a point of interrupting me to ask me "so how's <current_task> going?" Similarly, in environments where tasks are getting broken down into tickets that are only expected to take a few hours, there's a similar level of oversight (although hopefully a bit less disruptive than hourly shoulder-taps, I agree).
- everyone 9y ago
  I worked for a startup that grew up around me. We started without any project managers and such and they got introduced as the team grew and grew. I would just make tasks like "figure out how to do X", "look into this framework Y", "write a really good SO post for the bug we came across in library Z" . Worked fine, tho the PM for my project was sound.
- wry_discontent 9y ago
  I'm at the first job I've ever had that didn't do daily standups and it's liberating. I've never been more productive at work. Maybe once a week my manager comes by and asks me how something is going. I give him a high level sketch and a time estimate. He goes along on his way after that.
ww520 9y ago
He's treating you like a cog in a manufacturing plant, which he can "optimize" at will. MBA programs often teach people that. He doesn't understanding creative work or thinking heavy work "appear" to be non-working but it's essential.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  Why does asking how someone is doing mean you're a cog, or that you're in trouble if you're still doing research? Part of what a supervisor does is track progress across a whole team so they can keep other parts of the group appraised. Another important job is helping people make tradeoffs between perfect and done as the situation on the ground changes. Both of those require asking "how's it going?"
  - ww520 9y ago
    > I once had a manager ask me to email him a progress report every day; and every hour or two, he'd make a point of interrupting me to ask me "so how's <current_task> going?" Asking a developer's status progress everyday or every hour? That shows the manager has absolutely no clue how development works. Period. Developers don't need a manager to "help" them make tradeoff on a daily basis. Developers need managers to back the fuck off to let them alone to concentrate on the mentally taxing work at hand.
eru 9y ago
I guess the MBA is there to facilitate your professional development, not to make you more productive. And what you have to do in order to look good to your manager or manager's manager's manager is different than what you have to do to be productive. Your boss was perhaps just doing the former?
teyc 9y ago
Here are some possible explanation for the behaviour. There might be other urgent fires burning for the past week and he is getting nervous and trying to figure out whether he needs to reschedule. He also has to manage up and set expectations when the whole project is going to be done. He might be concerned you are gold plating an otherwise simple task. He might think you are stuck and trying to figure things out on your own. You could help him by letting him have a sense of where you are, and whether there is something more pressing that he needs to talk about. Perhaps he has access to people/equipment/money that can accelerate your work.
- bojan 9y ago
  The manager in question, were he a good one, should also be able to clearly and timely communicate if any or all of these things apply.

heymijo 9y ago

"A lot of textbook management techniques..." Can you unpack this? Would like to hear more.

dasmoth 9y ago
"Textbook" was possibly more a nervous tic than a statement of fact -- I've not read a lot of management textbooks... However, whenever I see generalist managers at work, there always seems to be massive emphasis on schedule risk and at least in organisation I've been in, the proposed mitigation is always regular status meetings (and perhaps other forms of check-in as well). This seems to have been almost entirely normalised in the software world, particularly anywhere that's gone down the agile pathway: fine-grained tickets in an issue tracker (or possibly cards on the wall -- but haven't ever seen that one in action) and a daily standup with an explicit goal of making sure nobody is "spinning their wheels".
- eru 9y ago
  One problem is that 'agile' has been taken over by management types.
- sverige 9y ago
  > However, whenever I see generalist managers at work, there always seems to be massive emphasis on schedule risk and at least in organisation I've been in, the proposed mitigation is always regular status meetings (and perhaps other forms of check-in as well). I think the reason for that behavior is because they don't want to be caught unawares when some deadline is missed. In other words, one of the metrics they are measured on is meeting deadlines, which of course pushes schedule risk to the top of the pile. There's merit to that, but that has to be balanced with the quality of the product. The blind spot for such managers is that constant check-ins and updates on progress too frequently interrupt the flow of people who need time to think things through. Adding pressure at the wrong point can possibly ruin the quality of the final product.
  - ScottBurson 9y ago