3 ms·

I consider this a form of procrastination, and I've been guilty of this myself. There are probably some unpleasant high-value tasks this person needs to be doin

by m0zg 6y ago

I consider this a form of procrastination, and I've been guilty of this myself. There are probably some unpleasant high-value tasks this person needs to be doing instead, so they convince themselves that this is high-value and do this because it's pleasant to them. You can actually weaponize this to do things that are "less unpleasant" but still worthwhile. Such tasks are much more palatable in the presence of another, more unpleasant task that you'd have to do instead. Story time: at Google the most unpleasant task employees have to do is writing their own (and their reports', if they have any) performance review, which results in a phenomenon called "perfcrastination", where a shit ton of work gets done just to postpone writing Perf until the last possible moment.

outworlder 6y ago
> Story time: at Google the most unpleasant task employees have to do is writing their own (and their reports', if they have any) performance review, which results in a phenomenon called "perfcrastination", where a shit ton of work gets done just to postpone writing Perf until the last possible moment. Oh, Google does 'self evaluations' too? That's reason enough to never even apply. That ranks among one of the worst ideas HR has ever had.
- m0zg 6y ago
  Worse, you have to "apply for promotion" if you want to get promoted, and the decision is made by a remote committee of people who don't even know anything about what you did first hand - you have to beat your chest like an ape, and get endorsements from people a level or two up from where you are (which can be a big problem outside Mountain View, since there are fewer such people there). The whole process is utterly demeaning and demoralizing, especially if you're from cultures where beating one's chest is frowned upon (such as e.g. Russian). You routinely see people do ridiculously awesome work and then get turned down for promo. You also routinely see people promoted who just sat in the meetings with the right people and took the credit for "launching" stuff. Major part of the reason why I left.
- allenu 6y ago
  Microsoft did that too. Now I'm at another company and we do it here as well. I'm not a fan of it, but having someone else write up your review sounds like a wonderful dream. The way I see it, you write your review, it goes up the management chain, they get to pick and choose what they agree with and now they have evidence since you admitted to doing it (or not, if it's missing in your self-eval), and then come back and justify why you get the bonus/raise or not using your own statements. Anyway, off-topic for this post.

by m0zg 6y ago

outworlder 6y ago

> Story time: at Google the most unpleasant task employees have to do is writing their own (and their reports', if they have any) performance review, which results in a phenomenon called "perfcrastination", where a shit ton of work gets done just to postpone writing Perf until the last possible moment. Oh, Google does 'self evaluations' too? That's reason enough to never even apply. That ranks among one of the worst ideas HR has ever had.

m0zg 6y ago
Worse, you have to "apply for promotion" if you want to get promoted, and the decision is made by a remote committee of people who don't even know anything about what you did first hand - you have to beat your chest like an ape, and get endorsements from people a level or two up from where you are (which can be a big problem outside Mountain View, since there are fewer such people there). The whole process is utterly demeaning and demoralizing, especially if you're from cultures where beating one's chest is frowned upon (such as e.g. Russian). You routinely see people do ridiculously awesome work and then get turned down for promo. You also routinely see people promoted who just sat in the meetings with the right people and took the credit for "launching" stuff. Major part of the reason why I left.
allenu 6y ago
Microsoft did that too. Now I'm at another company and we do it here as well. I'm not a fan of it, but having someone else write up your review sounds like a wonderful dream. The way I see it, you write your review, it goes up the management chain, they get to pick and choose what they agree with and now they have evidence since you admitted to doing it (or not, if it's missing in your self-eval), and then come back and justify why you get the bonus/raise or not using your own statements. Anyway, off-topic for this post.