7 ms·

This is a problem with incompetent managers. They failed to understand the different between productivity and sitting. Last company I worked for, the CEO said

by wdn 6y ago

This is a problem with incompetent managers. They failed to understand the different between productivity and sitting. Last company I worked for, the CEO said to me he doesn't care where anyone work as long as the work get done well. However, this was not the case with my own manager. He micro managed everything. He had an office manager sitting with the engineers reporting to him multiple times a day on if the engineers were sitting on the desk. You can feel you are being watch the moment you step into the office. It was an absolute shit place to work for.

otachack 6y ago
Managers can contribute to this but in my opinion it's a cultural inclination and we've all been thrust into it due to the pandemic. The forced move to WFH will be eye opening to everyone, managers included, and will also give credit to subordinates with cut and dry experience.
- cbg0 6y ago
  > The forced move to WFH will be eye opening to everyone, managers included I think you're overly optimistic about this, most just see Covid as a temporary inconvenience and will go back to business as usual when this ends. Sure, some smart managers may see the value, but I'd wager most of them are set in their ways.
folkhack 6y ago
> He micro managed everything. He had an office manager sitting with the engineers reporting to him multiple times a day on if the engineers were sitting on the desk. I really related to this in my last role. It's the butts-in-chairs method vs output because let's be real... most of the people promoted to middle-management can't measure actual output. I've always been on the edge of being a manager vs. being IC and the times I've bled over into management I have this style: you're expected to be here early by 30 minutes for meetings, and if you wanna leave directly after to go work from your home office I could care less. I expect workers to be highly available via chat and phone during normal business hours (adjusted to the timezone), and generally flexible if something comes up where I need 'em in the mothership. To measure output and success, whelp I just get on the corporate GitLab and read everyone's commits daily. Not only do I learn a TON working with solid talent... I also know who's jerkin' me around. Does this work for every WFH-type employee? Nope. Managing devs gives you a ton of black-and-white paper trails to ensure people are working the right direction. In contrast, throughout my IC career none of my managers have managed ME this way which blows my mind. I know I'm not the most talented leader but I don't understand why dev management doesn't look at real metrics to gauge success outside of "I don't know how to read code"... =| The way I managed also bought loyalty... like a lot of loyalty. When you get out of the way of people's lives and say, "I'm willing to make this career work with you as a person" you get an insane amount of forgiveness for being a poop manager in other areas. Did people take advantage of me giving them this slack? Yep. Did I fire 'em for poor output? Yep - at will state sucka. IMO you'll get people taking advantage of the system regardless of how you wanna lead so the best way to hedge that risk is looking at metrics + engaging consistently with your team. Bad apples tend to stick out in a few months and you just gotta learn to fire fast to maintain the integrity of the team vs pumping your staff numbers.
- james-mcelwain 6y ago
  I've often been tempted to show my less-technical manager our commit log, but have always avoided it because I can't see any way it wouldn't turn into some stupid game about commits and lines of code changed.
  - caseysoftware 6y ago
    "Your lines of code contributed is negative! Why do we pay you? You should be paying us!" - No one, I hope..
  - folkhack 6y ago
    I'd say about 70-80% of managers I've had couldn't build or work on the product that they're tasked with managing. And... I resent that. The truth is you need near-100% understanding of the code going into the product to really gauge someone's participation accurately. Looking at LOC, # of commits, etc. is all fluid so while they describe properties of the story, they're not the actual story itself. Also, there's up and down weeks. I've watched my top performers have poop weeks where they've only been able to crank out a couple of small features, or maybe just resolved one issue, etc. I feel like if micro-managers saw this they'd put the hurt on em... for me it literally never came up because within 1-2 weeks they'd be back on the rails. I was always like "huh - musta been some human stuff." Or, heck... sometimes I could tell they just moved a bit slower on more mundane tasks. When I put myself in a position to relate to that I find that I have the same lulls, lack of motivation for mundane work, etc. People NOT getting back on the rails after 1-2 weeks of meh was the exception! I also felt like I could demand more of my team during the 2-3 crank-it-out periods that inevitably occurred throughout the year because I had respected their time leading up to that... IDK. All-in-all if specs were being respected, code was clean/reasonably PR'd, deadlines were hit, and meetings were well prep'd for + attended I felt that we were being successful.
    - ishjoh 6y ago
      where there are dips in productivity it can also be that they're getting up to speed on an area of the codebase they are not familiar with. Ramp-up time is always difficult to account for but is absolutely something everyone needs when looking at new code.
specialist 6y ago
Could the micromanager write code? People who can't work, manage.
- mhb 6y ago
  Only microcode
  - danesparza 6y ago
    This is a new expression that I have never heard before, yet immediately understand and love. Thank you for this. I'm going to start using it more.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  > People who can't work, manage. People who can't manage, work.
- dmoy 6y ago
  I always heard (from a teacher, in a self deprecating fashion): Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach others to teach. Those who can't teach others to teach become school/Uni administrators. ... In reality I think it's hard to teach stuff you can't do, and teaching it becomes a great way to learn how it actually works.
Traster 6y ago
This is also a problem with incompetent engineers. They fail to understand the difference between building relationships and transmitting technical information.
marklacey 6y ago
This is something I’ve seen called “butts-in-seats management”, and yes, I’ve seen it in practice. Many years ago I had a new skip-level manager who emailed me one day saying that he had dropped by my office a few times to introduce himself but I was never around and he was really concerned with the fact that I never seemed to be in my office working. I am relatively certain every time he dropped by I was either in a colleagues office discussing a work issue or had run down to grab a coffee. But to him this was “concerning”. He didn’t last long. I believe he moved on in 8-12 months.

by wdn 6y ago

otachack 6y ago

Managers can contribute to this but in my opinion it's a cultural inclination and we've all been thrust into it due to the pandemic. The forced move to WFH will be eye opening to everyone, managers included, and will also give credit to subordinates with cut and dry experience.

cbg0 6y ago
> The forced move to WFH will be eye opening to everyone, managers included I think you're overly optimistic about this, most just see Covid as a temporary inconvenience and will go back to business as usual when this ends. Sure, some smart managers may see the value, but I'd wager most of them are set in their ways.

folkhack 6y ago

> He micro managed everything. He had an office manager sitting with the engineers reporting to him multiple times a day on if the engineers were sitting on the desk. I really related to this in my last role. It's the butts-in-chairs method vs output because let's be real... most of the people promoted to middle-management can't measure actual output. I've always been on the edge of being a manager vs. being IC and the times I've bled over into management I have this style: you're expected to be here early by 30 minutes for meetings, and if you wanna leave directly after to go work from your home office I could care less. I expect workers to be highly available via chat and phone during normal business hours (adjusted to the timezone), and generally flexible if something comes up where I need 'em in the mothership. To measure output and success, whelp I just get on the corporate GitLab and read everyone's commits daily. Not only do I learn a TON working with solid talent... I also know who's jerkin' me around. Does this work for every WFH-type employee? Nope. Managing devs gives you a ton of black-and-white paper trails to ensure people are working the right direction. In contrast, throughout my IC career none of my managers have managed ME this way which blows my mind. I know I'm not the most talented leader but I don't understand why dev management doesn't look at real metrics to gauge success outside of "I don't know how to read code"... =| The way I managed also bought loyalty... like a lot of loyalty. When you get out of the way of people's lives and say, "I'm willing to make this career work with you as a person" you get an insane amount of forgiveness for being a poop manager in other areas. Did people take advantage of me giving them this slack? Yep. Did I fire 'em for poor output? Yep - at will state sucka. IMO you'll get people taking advantage of the system regardless of how you wanna lead so the best way to hedge that risk is looking at metrics + engaging consistently with your team. Bad apples tend to stick out in a few months and you just gotta learn to fire fast to maintain the integrity of the team vs pumping your staff numbers.

james-mcelwain 6y ago
I've often been tempted to show my less-technical manager our commit log, but have always avoided it because I can't see any way it wouldn't turn into some stupid game about commits and lines of code changed.
- caseysoftware 6y ago
  "Your lines of code contributed is negative! Why do we pay you? You should be paying us!" - No one, I hope..
- folkhack 6y ago
  I'd say about 70-80% of managers I've had couldn't build or work on the product that they're tasked with managing. And... I resent that. The truth is you need near-100% understanding of the code going into the product to really gauge someone's participation accurately. Looking at LOC, # of commits, etc. is all fluid so while they describe properties of the story, they're not the actual story itself. Also, there's up and down weeks. I've watched my top performers have poop weeks where they've only been able to crank out a couple of small features, or maybe just resolved one issue, etc. I feel like if micro-managers saw this they'd put the hurt on em... for me it literally never came up because within 1-2 weeks they'd be back on the rails. I was always like "huh - musta been some human stuff." Or, heck... sometimes I could tell they just moved a bit slower on more mundane tasks. When I put myself in a position to relate to that I find that I have the same lulls, lack of motivation for mundane work, etc. People NOT getting back on the rails after 1-2 weeks of meh was the exception! I also felt like I could demand more of my team during the 2-3 crank-it-out periods that inevitably occurred throughout the year because I had respected their time leading up to that... IDK. All-in-all if specs were being respected, code was clean/reasonably PR'd, deadlines were hit, and meetings were well prep'd for + attended I felt that we were being successful.
  - ishjoh 6y ago
    where there are dips in productivity it can also be that they're getting up to speed on an area of the codebase they are not familiar with. Ramp-up time is always difficult to account for but is absolutely something everyone needs when looking at new code.

specialist 6y ago

Could the micromanager write code? People who can't work, manage.

mhb 6y ago
Only microcode
- danesparza 6y ago
  This is a new expression that I have never heard before, yet immediately understand and love. Thank you for this. I'm going to start using it more.
gridlockd 6y ago
> People who can't work, manage. People who can't manage, work.
dmoy 6y ago
I always heard (from a teacher, in a self deprecating fashion): Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach others to teach. Those who can't teach others to teach become school/Uni administrators. ... In reality I think it's hard to teach stuff you can't do, and teaching it becomes a great way to learn how it actually works.

Traster 6y ago

This is also a problem with incompetent engineers. They fail to understand the difference between building relationships and transmitting technical information.

marklacey 6y ago

This is something I’ve seen called “butts-in-seats management”, and yes, I’ve seen it in practice. Many years ago I had a new skip-level manager who emailed me one day saying that he had dropped by my office a few times to introduce himself but I was never around and he was really concerned with the fact that I never seemed to be in my office working. I am relatively certain every time he dropped by I was either in a colleagues office discussing a work issue or had run down to grab a coffee. But to him this was “concerning”. He didn’t last long. I believe he moved on in 8-12 months.