4 ms·

I can’t tell if this is trolling or a serious comment of how this will roll out?

by rudolph9 6y ago

Shared404 6y ago
It's a comment on government inefficiency.
- m463 6y ago
  Seriously I worked on projects subject to government scrutiny and it was ok, but you had to be the right kind of person. Account for your time in 6-minute increments. Milestones I recall off the top of my head were preliminary design, detailed design, 3-5% of your time coding, software integration, hardware software integration, acceptance. It was stable, predictable, and (to me) very soul-crushing.
  - lovecg 6y ago
    None of that sounds “ok”... Technical question for you, how does this time tracking work in practice? Do you pause every 6 minutes and note what you’re doing? Or just roughly remember at the end of the hour/day?
    - m463 6y ago
      You had to charge each project you worked on and record your time to .1 hour precision. So recording 1.1 against project 3456 would charge that project for 1 hour and 6 minutes of your time. You had to do the same thing for a dentist appointment. 1.0 hours for an "overhead project". (I should mention this was years ago) Also, lots of the people who worked there were ex-government employees and were fine with it, because software folks got to go home to their family every day at a predictable time, you would get training at regular intervals and although the pay wasn't super competitive it was a good job, indoors and in an air-conditioned office.
    - detaro 6y ago
      That's what time tracking software is made for. No need to pause, "just" remember to switch the software if you change tasks/projects.
      - m463 6y ago
        I vaguely recall part of it was that you had to sign your timesheets. It's been a long time, and I'm pretty certain things have gotten better. It was harder for me as a young software guy out of college to accept 3-5% only of your time was coding.
      - tialaramex 6y ago
        It becomes a reflex. Commercial lawyers all do it, tracking time this way is a fact of life, not least because if you end up in court arguing about costs the judge is going to throw out hand-wavy "I spent about a week on this" claims from professional lawyers who should know better.

I can’t tell if this is trolling or a serious comment of how this will roll out?

Shared404 6y ago

It's a comment on government inefficiency.

m463 6y ago
Seriously I worked on projects subject to government scrutiny and it was ok, but you had to be the right kind of person. Account for your time in 6-minute increments. Milestones I recall off the top of my head were preliminary design, detailed design, 3-5% of your time coding, software integration, hardware software integration, acceptance. It was stable, predictable, and (to me) very soul-crushing.
- lovecg 6y ago
  None of that sounds “ok”... Technical question for you, how does this time tracking work in practice? Do you pause every 6 minutes and note what you’re doing? Or just roughly remember at the end of the hour/day?
  - m463 6y ago
    You had to charge each project you worked on and record your time to .1 hour precision. So recording 1.1 against project 3456 would charge that project for 1 hour and 6 minutes of your time. You had to do the same thing for a dentist appointment. 1.0 hours for an "overhead project". (I should mention this was years ago) Also, lots of the people who worked there were ex-government employees and were fine with it, because software folks got to go home to their family every day at a predictable time, you would get training at regular intervals and although the pay wasn't super competitive it was a good job, indoors and in an air-conditioned office.
  - detaro 6y ago
    That's what time tracking software is made for. No need to pause, "just" remember to switch the software if you change tasks/projects.
    - m463 6y ago
      I vaguely recall part of it was that you had to sign your timesheets. It's been a long time, and I'm pretty certain things have gotten better. It was harder for me as a young software guy out of college to accept 3-5% only of your time was coding.
    - tialaramex 6y ago
      It becomes a reflex. Commercial lawyers all do it, tracking time this way is a fact of life, not least because if you end up in court arguing about costs the judge is going to throw out hand-wavy "I spent about a week on this" claims from professional lawyers who should know better.