3 ms·

My favorite is trying to figure out a bug and nothing I can think of provides any clue. So I do some other work for a bit and go home. And the next morning sit

My favorite is trying to figure out a bug and nothing I can think of provides any clue. So I do some other work for a bit and go home. And the next morning sit down down and fix the problem in 2 minutes. Obviously _something_ got done between last night and this morning. But how would you bill for THAT. Or an old example from a mentor. Get in the shower, start thinking about what you're going to work on today. Realize you've been in the shower for half an hour. How you going to bill for that? I've come to the idea that you pay an engineer for his attention to your problems. Engineers I dislike working with are ones that don't. Their other interests have crowded out what they are being paid to mind. And some of those guys definitely do spend 8 hours in the chair going through the motions. They do work but there is a disunity to the whole thing.

cosmodisk 7y ago
Last year we had a management meeting and somehow started talking about smoking. Someone suggested we should ban people from smoking because they are wasting company's time.I defended the smokers arguing these are usually much needed breaks for those on the phones. Then I went on explaining that I could literally sit outside the office all day and just talk to my colleague and smoke one after another and It will be a productive day for us.They were taken back for a bit by such arguments,but then I explained that we get paid for using our brains and if it takes 5 hours to sit outside and think how to do it and then jump back on the keyboard and write code in 2 hours that implements this idea,then that's what it is. Everyone agreed and we moved on from the topic:)
- jedberg 7y ago
  When I was a junior engineer, I worked on a team where everyone but me smoked. They would smoke for five minutes of every hour. It really pissed me off that they got breaks and I didn't. So I started joining them. Not to smoke, just to hang out while they smoked. And you know what? My productivity went up! The reason? We talked about work during the smoke break. I got to be part of the conversation with the senior engineers, which meant I got to be involved in more valuable tasks.
dvtrn 7y ago
>”obviously _something_ got done between last night and this morning” https://youtu.be/yjdhNyEmYpo https://youtu.be/yjdhNyEmYpo I found this video last night lounging on the couch, the first segment talks about exactly what you’ve described, and the necessity to sometimes let the mind wander or do something else entirely when you’re “in the zone” but nevertheless stumped on a particular problem. The video itself is about math and science but I think the applications extend far beyond.

cosmodisk 7y ago

Last year we had a management meeting and somehow started talking about smoking. Someone suggested we should ban people from smoking because they are wasting company's time.I defended the smokers arguing these are usually much needed breaks for those on the phones. Then I went on explaining that I could literally sit outside the office all day and just talk to my colleague and smoke one after another and It will be a productive day for us.They were taken back for a bit by such arguments,but then I explained that we get paid for using our brains and if it takes 5 hours to sit outside and think how to do it and then jump back on the keyboard and write code in 2 hours that implements this idea,then that's what it is. Everyone agreed and we moved on from the topic:)

jedberg 7y ago
When I was a junior engineer, I worked on a team where everyone but me smoked. They would smoke for five minutes of every hour. It really pissed me off that they got breaks and I didn't. So I started joining them. Not to smoke, just to hang out while they smoked. And you know what? My productivity went up! The reason? We talked about work during the smoke break. I got to be part of the conversation with the senior engineers, which meant I got to be involved in more valuable tasks.

dvtrn 7y ago

>”obviously _something_ got done between last night and this morning” https://youtu.be/yjdhNyEmYpo https://youtu.be/yjdhNyEmYpo I found this video last night lounging on the couch, the first segment talks about exactly what you’ve described, and the necessity to sometimes let the mind wander or do something else entirely when you’re “in the zone” but nevertheless stumped on a particular problem. The video itself is about math and science but I think the applications extend far beyond.