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Anti-Autonomy. My two years working for a large company I felt micro-managed. Even as a Creative Director. My last straw was being chastised for leaving five mi

Anti-Autonomy. My two years working for a large company I felt micro-managed. Even as a Creative Director. My last straw was being chastised for leaving five minutes before 5pm and how it's bad "optics" – anyway, I believe the #1 thing in life is to control your schedule. From there everything else flows; health, family, social, true travel etc. This doesn't necessary mean being an entrepreneur, but having a certain level of autonomy. Once you taste it, it's nearly impossible to go back to such controlled, desk-equated productivity environments.

cryoshon 7y ago
>Once you taste it, it's nearly impossible to go back to such controlled, desk-equated productivity environments. yes, i've found this as well. the reason is that employer-based constraints on your schedule are always arbitrary, rarely compensated for in full, never equitable across power structures, and only tenuously negotiable in your favor. in other words: your life becomes theirs to control in spirit, if not entirely in practice. it doesn't matter if they expect you to be at work from 9 to 5 or whatever else. if your employment is contingent on holding their schedule, they effectively hold control over the rest of your life's schedule. and they excercise that control to the detriment of your life as a matter of course, routinely, ruthlessly, without hesitation, and without consideration, in nearly 100% of cases -- yes, even in the "cool startup" you're working for. remember, you need to ask them to take time off to care for your sick relatives. you need to ask them for permission to not be at work to spend time for yourself on vacation. you are explicitly their property for however many hours per day, but they also own enough of you to implicitly dictate where you're allowed to be and when, and for what reasons. i guess some people find it a good bargain to trade their autonomy for a wage. it's very hard to respect that kind of thinking a lot of the time, but i've learned to do it simply because most people accept the bargain and it'd be too isolating to behave otherwise. for me, it's an intolerable situation to bear, even for a moment.
- TruffleMuffin 7y ago
  Are you currently employed? What job is offering you unrestricted control of your schedule? No requirement to work with others? No requirements to attend meetings at fixed times? etc. From what you said, I can't picture a workplace that is functional like that.
  - lmilcin 7y ago
    I have worked in couple of places, mainly largest banks, as a contractor Java dev. Your freedom is directly proportional to the trust your manager has in your good judgment. If you can build the trust and convince the manager (indirectly) that they don't need to handhold you and it's better to use their time to focus on other things you can be doing mostly the stuff you decide needs to be done. From my experience, in case of FB moderators, these things happen because of some kind of corporate scarring. I guess somebody or a group of people seriously exploited their freedom and the management instead of trying to actually understand and solve the problem used shotgun/lazy management to just outright squash the problem along with every team member's freedom.
  - llamataboot 7y ago
    But you can work with others and figure those things out together, all with autonomy. "Hey, I'm gonna be in a different TZ next week and 9AM standups really won't work for me, can we find a time in the afternoon that works for all of us?" "Hey, Jane and i were talking and we really want to try making this standing meeting into something async for a month and see if it works for folks, how does everyone else feel about it?" Of course you have to work with others, and you may have to work with others that for various reasons are in a very 9-5 schedule, but if you have autonomy, you can figure out how to do that without it meaning "Be at your desk by 9AM or else!"
  - dionidium 7y ago
    I'm a software engineer working remote for a large company. Obviously, yes, I have meetings, some of which are required. But there is no other detail of my schedule, large or small, that's restricted or required or externally imposed.
- standardUser 7y ago
  "i guess some people find it a good bargain to trade their autonomy for a wage" A better guess would be that virtually all people need to generate income and most of them take whatever bargain they can get, lest they get consumed by debt or evicted from their home.
- codinger 7y ago
  Sorry, I'll take wage slavery over the gig-economy. I'm lucky and don't have to choose between the two right now with my flexible schedule at my current job.
dionidium 7y ago
> Once you taste it, it's nearly impossible to go back to such controlled, desk-equated productivity environments. This is an underrated source of class division, I think. Working- and lower-class people in menial jobs endure tortuous levels of this stuff, far beyond what your average office worker would ever think is reasonable (or maybe even possible).
- TaylorGood 7y ago
  Interesting way to put it. Can confirm - have C-level friends whom experience a drastically opposite work life than what you described. Separately, it is unfortunate management at any level can assert “power plays” to those below them with little downside.

cryoshon 7y ago

>Once you taste it, it's nearly impossible to go back to such controlled, desk-equated productivity environments. yes, i've found this as well. the reason is that employer-based constraints on your schedule are always arbitrary, rarely compensated for in full, never equitable across power structures, and only tenuously negotiable in your favor. in other words: your life becomes theirs to control in spirit, if not entirely in practice. it doesn't matter if they expect you to be at work from 9 to 5 or whatever else. if your employment is contingent on holding their schedule, they effectively hold control over the rest of your life's schedule. and they excercise that control to the detriment of your life as a matter of course, routinely, ruthlessly, without hesitation, and without consideration, in nearly 100% of cases -- yes, even in the "cool startup" you're working for. remember, you need to ask them to take time off to care for your sick relatives. you need to ask them for permission to not be at work to spend time for yourself on vacation. you are explicitly their property for however many hours per day, but they also own enough of you to implicitly dictate where you're allowed to be and when, and for what reasons. i guess some people find it a good bargain to trade their autonomy for a wage. it's very hard to respect that kind of thinking a lot of the time, but i've learned to do it simply because most people accept the bargain and it'd be too isolating to behave otherwise. for me, it's an intolerable situation to bear, even for a moment.

TruffleMuffin 7y ago
Are you currently employed? What job is offering you unrestricted control of your schedule? No requirement to work with others? No requirements to attend meetings at fixed times? etc. From what you said, I can't picture a workplace that is functional like that.
- lmilcin 7y ago
  I have worked in couple of places, mainly largest banks, as a contractor Java dev. Your freedom is directly proportional to the trust your manager has in your good judgment. If you can build the trust and convince the manager (indirectly) that they don't need to handhold you and it's better to use their time to focus on other things you can be doing mostly the stuff you decide needs to be done. From my experience, in case of FB moderators, these things happen because of some kind of corporate scarring. I guess somebody or a group of people seriously exploited their freedom and the management instead of trying to actually understand and solve the problem used shotgun/lazy management to just outright squash the problem along with every team member's freedom.
- llamataboot 7y ago
  But you can work with others and figure those things out together, all with autonomy. "Hey, I'm gonna be in a different TZ next week and 9AM standups really won't work for me, can we find a time in the afternoon that works for all of us?" "Hey, Jane and i were talking and we really want to try making this standing meeting into something async for a month and see if it works for folks, how does everyone else feel about it?" Of course you have to work with others, and you may have to work with others that for various reasons are in a very 9-5 schedule, but if you have autonomy, you can figure out how to do that without it meaning "Be at your desk by 9AM or else!"
- dionidium 7y ago
  I'm a software engineer working remote for a large company. Obviously, yes, I have meetings, some of which are required. But there is no other detail of my schedule, large or small, that's restricted or required or externally imposed.
standardUser 7y ago
"i guess some people find it a good bargain to trade their autonomy for a wage" A better guess would be that virtually all people need to generate income and most of them take whatever bargain they can get, lest they get consumed by debt or evicted from their home.
codinger 7y ago
Sorry, I'll take wage slavery over the gig-economy. I'm lucky and don't have to choose between the two right now with my flexible schedule at my current job.

dionidium 7y ago

> Once you taste it, it's nearly impossible to go back to such controlled, desk-equated productivity environments. This is an underrated source of class division, I think. Working- and lower-class people in menial jobs endure tortuous levels of this stuff, far beyond what your average office worker would ever think is reasonable (or maybe even possible).

TaylorGood 7y ago
Interesting way to put it. Can confirm - have C-level friends whom experience a drastically opposite work life than what you described. Separately, it is unfortunate management at any level can assert “power plays” to those below them with little downside.