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I find it interesting how many people on the linked HN threads for previous discussions say they've been in similar situations. I've never had a position where

by ufmace 8y ago

I find it interesting how many people on the linked HN threads for previous discussions say they've been in similar situations. I've never had a position where I didn't have anything at all to do for an extended amount of time, though I've only worked for one really large company. I did work at a pretty reasonable pace on projects that were obviously not a practical idea and would probably never amount to much, while numerous good ideas that could have saved substantial money got ignored. But I didn't really know of anyone who really didn't do anything. Though there was one guy who had less than a dozen commits in a year, all just a couple of lines. But after trying to work with him on something for another project, I think he really was just that bad at coding.

flukus 8y ago
> I think he really was just that bad at coding Count your blessings, bad coders that work hard screw up the entire codebase for everyone. They also seem to get promoted for their hard work.
- PakG1 8y ago
  That is literally the Dilbert Principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle
wolco 8y ago
This exists. I've been in situations where doing development is seen as risky and not doing anything can earn you a promotion.
Tade0 8y ago
Eight years ago I was an intern(actually a budget filler) in a large corporation. My tasks included: -Translating table columns(results of this were thrown away) -Preparing "use cases" (actually training a real intern who majored in business administration so she had no idea how to do this) -Reading a 900 page Tibco product API reference. I took two weeks off - arranged with my manager. I was told that after a week someone finally asked "Where's <my name here>?" I noticed that other employees had Eclipse opened at all times so I downloaded it and started learning Java - after all my position was "JAVA intern". No one bothered me during these three months after which I had enough money to buy a laptop and get a driving license. I was also offered a position but I declined on the grounds that I was yet to graduate back then.
- isostatic 8y ago
  > I noticed that other employees had Eclipse opened at all times so I downloaded it and started learning Java - after all my position was "JAVA intern". I've had several trainees through my team in the last year or so, for 3-6 months each. If they come to me with a problem I'll move heaven and earth to help, they get invited to various meetings, introduced to various customers, but otherwise I'll give them freedom. If they use that freedom to proactively find a problem and try to fix it, or badger us to help until we give them a small problem that they then come up with an attempt at a solution, they get a job If they sit there playing Galaga, it's their loss. I'm not interested in their hard skills, I don't care if you're a whizz at python or perl or go or whatever - those can be learned. I care about your work ethic, your ability to understand what the customers need, and your ability to solve those problems. I don't have time to micromanage, nobody in my team does, if you can't make yourself useful then you're not. If I wanted someone to micromanage I'd get a contractor.
pjc50 8y ago
We've just had an experience where: - it was made very clear that we should not start on work items that weren't ready or approved - there were no ready or approved work items Although that only went on for two weeks.
- taejo 8y ago
  I've had this go on for about four months: we were acquired, and although some of our code would be integrated into the acquirer's offerings, our roadmap was of no interest to them, but since we hadn't been legally integrated yet, we couldn't be assigned to new teams or given new work items. This information wasn't communicated to us directly, though, so everyone but a few very senior people just noticed a gradual drying up of tickets and tasks. There was a lot of looking for things to do and looking busy for the first couple months, though as we started to figure out what was going on there were more and more spontaneous frisbee games and slacklining lessons, culminating in the whole of our satellite office leaving the office after lunch to go on a hike one day.
commandlinefan 8y ago
> numerous good ideas that could have saved substantial money got ignored. I see a lot of that, too, and have in the past two and a half decades. It took me a while to catch on to the difference between what got worked on and what didn't: the things that are measurable are the things that get worked on. In fact, the things that are most trivially measurable are always the things that get the most love. I think that some of the really big, really successful places like Amazon and Google have managed to get past this and actually put some effort into "speculative" projects, but most organizations spend all their time on the lowest hanging fruit, no matter how rotten it actually is.
HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
It's not always large companies where this happens. I had a similar situation in my late 20's at a very small company. Having fewer than a dozen employees, they (obviously) knew I was there, but I literally had no work to do for months. I was the only engineer and there was no engineering going on, so my days were spent basically learning new skills. Eventually I got bored enough to look for a new job, but the company went out of business before I jumped ship.
rockybullwinkle 8y ago
Here's one that most people here could do: I was a college computer lab 'technician', which was like a librarian for the computer lab, and my only responsibilities were: - Shutting down the computers after we closed - Setting up a projector or two daily $20/hr to sit and chill on the computer for six hours is the college nerd's wet dream.

by ufmace 8y ago

flukus 8y ago

> I think he really was just that bad at coding Count your blessings, bad coders that work hard screw up the entire codebase for everyone. They also seem to get promoted for their hard work.

PakG1 8y ago
That is literally the Dilbert Principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle

wolco 8y ago

This exists. I've been in situations where doing development is seen as risky and not doing anything can earn you a promotion.

Tade0 8y ago

Eight years ago I was an intern(actually a budget filler) in a large corporation. My tasks included: -Translating table columns(results of this were thrown away) -Preparing "use cases" (actually training a real intern who majored in business administration so she had no idea how to do this) -Reading a 900 page Tibco product API reference. I took two weeks off - arranged with my manager. I was told that after a week someone finally asked "Where's <my name here>?" I noticed that other employees had Eclipse opened at all times so I downloaded it and started learning Java - after all my position was "JAVA intern". No one bothered me during these three months after which I had enough money to buy a laptop and get a driving license. I was also offered a position but I declined on the grounds that I was yet to graduate back then.

isostatic 8y ago
> I noticed that other employees had Eclipse opened at all times so I downloaded it and started learning Java - after all my position was "JAVA intern". I've had several trainees through my team in the last year or so, for 3-6 months each. If they come to me with a problem I'll move heaven and earth to help, they get invited to various meetings, introduced to various customers, but otherwise I'll give them freedom. If they use that freedom to proactively find a problem and try to fix it, or badger us to help until we give them a small problem that they then come up with an attempt at a solution, they get a job If they sit there playing Galaga, it's their loss. I'm not interested in their hard skills, I don't care if you're a whizz at python or perl or go or whatever - those can be learned. I care about your work ethic, your ability to understand what the customers need, and your ability to solve those problems. I don't have time to micromanage, nobody in my team does, if you can't make yourself useful then you're not. If I wanted someone to micromanage I'd get a contractor.

pjc50 8y ago

We've just had an experience where: - it was made very clear that we should not start on work items that weren't ready or approved - there were no ready or approved work items Although that only went on for two weeks.

taejo 8y ago
I've had this go on for about four months: we were acquired, and although some of our code would be integrated into the acquirer's offerings, our roadmap was of no interest to them, but since we hadn't been legally integrated yet, we couldn't be assigned to new teams or given new work items. This information wasn't communicated to us directly, though, so everyone but a few very senior people just noticed a gradual drying up of tickets and tasks. There was a lot of looking for things to do and looking busy for the first couple months, though as we started to figure out what was going on there were more and more spontaneous frisbee games and slacklining lessons, culminating in the whole of our satellite office leaving the office after lunch to go on a hike one day.

commandlinefan 8y ago

> numerous good ideas that could have saved substantial money got ignored. I see a lot of that, too, and have in the past two and a half decades. It took me a while to catch on to the difference between what got worked on and what didn't: the things that are measurable are the things that get worked on. In fact, the things that are most trivially measurable are always the things that get the most love. I think that some of the really big, really successful places like Amazon and Google have managed to get past this and actually put some effort into "speculative" projects, but most organizations spend all their time on the lowest hanging fruit, no matter how rotten it actually is.

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago

It's not always large companies where this happens. I had a similar situation in my late 20's at a very small company. Having fewer than a dozen employees, they (obviously) knew I was there, but I literally had no work to do for months. I was the only engineer and there was no engineering going on, so my days were spent basically learning new skills. Eventually I got bored enough to look for a new job, but the company went out of business before I jumped ship.

rockybullwinkle 8y ago

Here's one that most people here could do: I was a college computer lab 'technician', which was like a librarian for the computer lab, and my only responsibilities were: - Shutting down the computers after we closed - Setting up a projector or two daily $20/hr to sit and chill on the computer for six hours is the college nerd's wet dream.