6 ms·

Ask HN: Do you have a do-nothing job?

26 points by da02 8y ago

If you have a do-nothing job, what are the positives and negatives of it? Any advice on getting a do-nothing job like yours?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ibash 8y ago
Why do you want a do-nothing job? That sounds horrible.
- da02 8y ago
  It's more for curiosity. People talk about do-nothing jobs, but I haven't heard much about the road(s) that led to them.
- tedmiston 8y ago
  Einstein's day job was as a patent clerk so he could spend his mental energy on problems he personally cared about.
- punchclockhero 8y ago
  Closest thing to UBI you can get these days.
bsvalley 8y ago
There's only one positive thing for people who don't want to stay in a 9-5 job for life - being able to free up your brain on a daily basis in order to work on your personal project. It's a huge plus if you have a lot of bills to pay (mortgage, kids, etc.), while trying to launch your own business and to get rid of your 9-5 life. I personally don't know what drives people to work for other people... Well, otherwise no one would work for your own business I guess :)
- paulcole 8y ago
  > I personally don't know what drives people to work for other people I’m lazy and unmotivated. I have no goals and no plans for the future other than dying before I run out of money or life gets too unbearable. I have to get up in the morning and make money to get by. May as do as little as I have to.
- muzani 8y ago
  > "I personally don't know what drives people to work for other people." I've done a few businesses before. It's extremely stressful when it goes bad. My bosses now haven't had a vacation in years. It's easier to fire the boss and get a better one than for the boss to fire a star developer. When it goes well, you get more money than the people who work for you. Sometimes. With tech, the larger cut often ends up for the people who do the work. So all things given, if you're an engineer, it's probably better to work for other people. The only reason I see to own your own business is if you don't trust someone else to be in charge.
  - tedmiston 8y ago
    Of course with the caveat that in tech, we as engineers can work for other people and still own the business in the form of equity, at least a portion of it.
- tedmiston 8y ago
  > I personally don't know what drives people to work for other people Absolute return - the downside risk is reduced compared to running your own startup or small business, most of which go out of business in their first few years. And stability. (I'm an employee and single-member business owner.)
- dasmoth 8y ago
  There’s a pretty strong social expectation of “getting a job”. When full time “working for the man” employment is what friends and family expect, it easily becomes the default. Mortgage lenders (and probably other financial institutions) are generally happier dealing with employees, too. I’m not actually convinced it’s entirely about immediate risk: employees get laid off frequently enough that I don’t think the short-to-mid-term risk difference really justifies the preference. Rather, it’s that working a normal-looking day job is a conformity signal.
muzani 8y ago
Be a manager. Update Jira every day. Be in all the meetings. Know what everyone else is doing. Know the status of what you're responsible over. At higher ranks, you manage managers. Your whole job is automated, you just have to sign approvals. When there are enough managers, your job is just to stay up-to-date and to keep the other managers up to date. You argue for weeks on how to shorten the deadline by a week. In rare cases, you will be asked to do a job - increase resources for your team or extend a deadline. The hard way would be to communicate well. Explain why you need extra resources, back it up with evidence that your team is working hard. The easy way would be to blame it on another team. The front end team is slow because the API team has bugs. The back end team can't start without approval from the UI director, who is on maternity leave. The UI team just got a change request from the CEO, causing a chain reaction of delays. Sales team is slowed down because the product isn't ready. HR can't get visas to bring in this consultant, because we were all running on agile and didn't realize we needed him next week, not next month. An advanced trick would be to tag team the blame. You blame this manager, that manager blames you. Some roles fit into this naturally - hardware/software, dev/QA, front end/back end. You can extend a deadline unnecessarily long. You'll have some weird effects going on, like 2 weeks dev time and 4 months pre-development preparation. But everyone above you is management and understands how difficult the job is.
- horatiocain 8y ago
  Jesus this is my life :\ I used to write the best code :). Now it's meetings, checkin, answer questions, talk to QA and directors, maybe a PR if someone else didn't get it. It sucks but I guess my job is to do all that dumb stuff so that my team can be 100% productive. They're awesome and don't deserve to have to go to meetings. It seems to be working though, the team fucking cranks like never before. I do wish I could grab more than like one bug a week.
  - muzani 8y ago
    Yeah, the manager's job is to do 'nothing'. If there's nobody assigned to doing 'nothing', then it's the team that spends all their time doing 'nothing'.
  - 8y ago
throw_this_one 8y ago
I have a do-nothing job as a junior level dev at a bank. I got put on a poorly managed team that is supporting an outdated and undocumented application that is super complex. So the amount of value I can add without a little bit of hand holding (never get it) is very low. So I just do the minimum to get by and seem like I'm on the team. I hate it. Best way out? Maybe I just need to apply to a new job and take a jump. I hate the banking domain, everything seems pointless to me and adds zero value to society. Feel stuck. The good thing is I work 9-5 (if that) and can spend my time doing other things. But of course it is difficult to pull yourself up and make something of that free time. I mostly just work out, study human languages, go to concerts.
- horatiocain 8y ago
  What location are you in? In my experience, Seattle and Boulder have open slots for junior devs that pay pretty okay, just show up and be ready to sling some code. Agree banking is the pits. That said, it sounds like you have a pretty good gig. Might want to start shopping around.
  - throw_this_one 8y ago
    NYC, making close to 90k at age 26. Part of me doesn't even know if I like dev! But I think it's because I was never on an energetic team getting stuff done, which would probably be enjoyable (even if the domain itself is worthless imo). I don't know if I have the skills to freelance/consult at this point, but I'd love to do that while traveling (not hedonistic, but stay in a place for a few months and learn the language, build groups of friends, etc). I think I'd like to either stay in NYC and work on something meaningful or just make a lot of money, or just go off and do the freelance/consult/build a standard niche marketing product type of online business. At least I'd get the travel/language bug out of my system and have a good story to tell.
    - frou_dh 8y ago
      Here's a human factor that makes it even worse... Being aware of the low standards unfortunately does not stop one from internalising them at some level as the correct way to operate. So they do not only stunt your current growth as a developer, but also your potential future growth, too.
_ah 8y ago
No one willingly creates a do-nothing job, and people are not hired to be useless. In the rare cases where this DOES happen, there's usually an ulterior motive such as vanity. What does happen with great regularity is that do-nothing jobs evolve: a capable person is hired to do a productive thing, the need for the thing is obviated, but no one fires the person. This is an emergent condition based on limited information: in a large organization it's impossible to know what everyone is doing, and everyone was hired to do something useful at some point, so the default strategy is to assume usefulness. In the case where a person's work is no longer useful, there is no reason for the employee to acknowledge this fact, and so the do-nothing job often continues (paired with powerful self-delusion). So how do you get one of these jobs? You don't. They just kind of grow up around you. However, the correct response in this situation is to evolve your role or quit. If you don't and "coast", then you may find yourself unemployable later when the job is (belatedly) eliminated.

26 points by da02 8y ago

If you have a do-nothing job, what are the positives and negatives of it? Any advice on getting a do-nothing job like yours?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ibash 8y ago

Why do you want a do-nothing job? That sounds horrible.

da02 8y ago
It's more for curiosity. People talk about do-nothing jobs, but I haven't heard much about the road(s) that led to them.
tedmiston 8y ago
Einstein's day job was as a patent clerk so he could spend his mental energy on problems he personally cared about.
punchclockhero 8y ago
Closest thing to UBI you can get these days.

bsvalley 8y ago

There's only one positive thing for people who don't want to stay in a 9-5 job for life - being able to free up your brain on a daily basis in order to work on your personal project. It's a huge plus if you have a lot of bills to pay (mortgage, kids, etc.), while trying to launch your own business and to get rid of your 9-5 life. I personally don't know what drives people to work for other people... Well, otherwise no one would work for your own business I guess :)

paulcole 8y ago
> I personally don't know what drives people to work for other people I’m lazy and unmotivated. I have no goals and no plans for the future other than dying before I run out of money or life gets too unbearable. I have to get up in the morning and make money to get by. May as do as little as I have to.
muzani 8y ago
> "I personally don't know what drives people to work for other people." I've done a few businesses before. It's extremely stressful when it goes bad. My bosses now haven't had a vacation in years. It's easier to fire the boss and get a better one than for the boss to fire a star developer. When it goes well, you get more money than the people who work for you. Sometimes. With tech, the larger cut often ends up for the people who do the work. So all things given, if you're an engineer, it's probably better to work for other people. The only reason I see to own your own business is if you don't trust someone else to be in charge.
- tedmiston 8y ago
  Of course with the caveat that in tech, we as engineers can work for other people and still own the business in the form of equity, at least a portion of it.
tedmiston 8y ago
> I personally don't know what drives people to work for other people Absolute return - the downside risk is reduced compared to running your own startup or small business, most of which go out of business in their first few years. And stability. (I'm an employee and single-member business owner.)
dasmoth 8y ago
There’s a pretty strong social expectation of “getting a job”. When full time “working for the man” employment is what friends and family expect, it easily becomes the default. Mortgage lenders (and probably other financial institutions) are generally happier dealing with employees, too. I’m not actually convinced it’s entirely about immediate risk: employees get laid off frequently enough that I don’t think the short-to-mid-term risk difference really justifies the preference. Rather, it’s that working a normal-looking day job is a conformity signal.

muzani 8y ago

Be a manager. Update Jira every day. Be in all the meetings. Know what everyone else is doing. Know the status of what you're responsible over. At higher ranks, you manage managers. Your whole job is automated, you just have to sign approvals. When there are enough managers, your job is just to stay up-to-date and to keep the other managers up to date. You argue for weeks on how to shorten the deadline by a week. In rare cases, you will be asked to do a job - increase resources for your team or extend a deadline. The hard way would be to communicate well. Explain why you need extra resources, back it up with evidence that your team is working hard. The easy way would be to blame it on another team. The front end team is slow because the API team has bugs. The back end team can't start without approval from the UI director, who is on maternity leave. The UI team just got a change request from the CEO, causing a chain reaction of delays. Sales team is slowed down because the product isn't ready. HR can't get visas to bring in this consultant, because we were all running on agile and didn't realize we needed him next week, not next month. An advanced trick would be to tag team the blame. You blame this manager, that manager blames you. Some roles fit into this naturally - hardware/software, dev/QA, front end/back end. You can extend a deadline unnecessarily long. You'll have some weird effects going on, like 2 weeks dev time and 4 months pre-development preparation. But everyone above you is management and understands how difficult the job is.

horatiocain 8y ago
Jesus this is my life :\ I used to write the best code :). Now it's meetings, checkin, answer questions, talk to QA and directors, maybe a PR if someone else didn't get it. It sucks but I guess my job is to do all that dumb stuff so that my team can be 100% productive. They're awesome and don't deserve to have to go to meetings. It seems to be working though, the team fucking cranks like never before. I do wish I could grab more than like one bug a week.
- muzani 8y ago
  Yeah, the manager's job is to do 'nothing'. If there's nobody assigned to doing 'nothing', then it's the team that spends all their time doing 'nothing'.
- 8y ago

throw_this_one 8y ago

I have a do-nothing job as a junior level dev at a bank. I got put on a poorly managed team that is supporting an outdated and undocumented application that is super complex. So the amount of value I can add without a little bit of hand holding (never get it) is very low. So I just do the minimum to get by and seem like I'm on the team. I hate it. Best way out? Maybe I just need to apply to a new job and take a jump. I hate the banking domain, everything seems pointless to me and adds zero value to society. Feel stuck. The good thing is I work 9-5 (if that) and can spend my time doing other things. But of course it is difficult to pull yourself up and make something of that free time. I mostly just work out, study human languages, go to concerts.

horatiocain 8y ago
What location are you in? In my experience, Seattle and Boulder have open slots for junior devs that pay pretty okay, just show up and be ready to sling some code. Agree banking is the pits. That said, it sounds like you have a pretty good gig. Might want to start shopping around.
- throw_this_one 8y ago
  NYC, making close to 90k at age 26. Part of me doesn't even know if I like dev! But I think it's because I was never on an energetic team getting stuff done, which would probably be enjoyable (even if the domain itself is worthless imo). I don't know if I have the skills to freelance/consult at this point, but I'd love to do that while traveling (not hedonistic, but stay in a place for a few months and learn the language, build groups of friends, etc). I think I'd like to either stay in NYC and work on something meaningful or just make a lot of money, or just go off and do the freelance/consult/build a standard niche marketing product type of online business. At least I'd get the travel/language bug out of my system and have a good story to tell.
  - frou_dh 8y ago
    Here's a human factor that makes it even worse... Being aware of the low standards unfortunately does not stop one from internalising them at some level as the correct way to operate. So they do not only stunt your current growth as a developer, but also your potential future growth, too.

_ah 8y ago

No one willingly creates a do-nothing job, and people are not hired to be useless. In the rare cases where this DOES happen, there's usually an ulterior motive such as vanity. What does happen with great regularity is that do-nothing jobs evolve: a capable person is hired to do a productive thing, the need for the thing is obviated, but no one fires the person. This is an emergent condition based on limited information: in a large organization it's impossible to know what everyone is doing, and everyone was hired to do something useful at some point, so the default strategy is to assume usefulness. In the case where a person's work is no longer useful, there is no reason for the employee to acknowledge this fact, and so the do-nothing job often continues (paired with powerful self-delusion). So how do you get one of these jobs? You don't. They just kind of grow up around you. However, the correct response in this situation is to evolve your role or quit. If you don't and "coast", then you may find yourself unemployable later when the job is (belatedly) eliminated.