17 ms·

> I'm basically in a job that is quite important for my org, I get compliments for good job, but I hate most aspects of my daily work There's a class of "cryst

by gopalv 6y ago

> I'm basically in a job that is quite important for my org, I get compliments for good job, but I hate most aspects of my daily work There's a class of "crystallized intelligence" jobs which are about what happened before rather than what you do today. There's an intersection between that sort of knowledge and a certain fluid intelligence to slot it in where things fit. I'm in one of those jobs right now, where the last six years of what I've read/absorbed is more valuable (as a sort of fast cross-reference in my brain) than what I actually do right now. I'm the guy with the picture that's on puzzle box, rather than having to place each puzzle piece. I've tried really hard to make myself obsolete and do something else, but it has backfired spectacularly. I've written down all of this in documents, trained other people to do the same thing over the years, even built tools to replace the easy parts (right now there's an intern doing the next pass of that automation) the effect of which has been to lighten my workload even more & I'm not missed if need to take a couple of weeks on a roadtrip or something. To do this, I've had to do something which is not volume driven (i.e my output is not a factor of time), so moved away from building web applications to profiling/optimizing all kinds of networked applications, where the ability to cut through the stack is useful, but for any given layer there's someone who does it "professionally". This is of course not a long-term parking spot for me, but I'm useful and in essence acting as "an elder" store of information about the past & a slightly clearer view of the future.

busterarm 6y ago
I feel like I'm in a similar position on the automation side. I've automated so much of what I'm responsible for that it mostly runs itself without issue. There are certainly stretches of time where I work my ass off, but mostly it's days of a couple of hours of light work and then being available to help people via Slack the rest of the day.
gen220 6y ago
> I'm the guy with the picture that's on puzzle box, rather than having to place each puzzle piece. This is such a great phrase! It so succinctly captures a situation I think we've all observed many times, but I've always struggled to encode it in words. > I've tried really hard to make myself obsolete and do something else, but it has backfired spectacularly. How has this backfired, I'm curious? I'm imagining that the future-you's fail to seamlessly slot-in, and management types don't have an appetite for broken eggs on the way to an omelette, when they already have an omelette in you? > I'm useful and in essence acting as "an elder" store of information about the past & a slightly clearer view of the future. I wonder, do you feel any anxiety about this? As in, you're valuable at $COMPANY_X, but you're not challenged to better yourself beyond what you already are. Much of your value to $COMPANY_X derives from skills and knowledge that are specific to $COMPANY_X / $INDUSTRY. For me, the anxiety would come from the question "sure, I have this here and now, but would I be able to reproduce this elsewhere, or what this a fluke?", and it would increase with tenure. :) Curious to hear your thoughts on this, too.
- gopalv 6y ago
  > How has this backfired, I'm curious? .. > I'm imagining that the future-you's fail to seamlessly slot-in, and management types don't have an appetite for broken eggs on the way to an omelette, when they already have an omelette in you? No, not that way - I took about 9 months off in the last 4 years, which has forced a replacement of my past self. But there are still problems which are "new". So in a manner of speaking, but more along the lines of filtering out all the easy problems with automation, documentation, others with similar skills - by the time the buck stops at my desk, I have nowhere to move it to. Instead of being obsolete, I'm a SPOF higher up the problem complexity. The more guesswork I do, the better I am at guessing what's wrong and every time I pull off a further "last minute miracle", the more entrenched I become, rather than obsolete. > For me, the anxiety would come from the question "sure, I have this here and now, but would I be able to reproduce this elsewhere, or what this a fluke?" The success part of it was a total fluke - lots of bets on me by others which came through.
  - swiftcoder 6y ago
    > Instead of being obsolete, I'm a SPOF higher up the problem complexity. This seems somewhat inevitable for "high performers". The only way round it I'm aware of is to hitch your wagon to an SPOF further up the chain.
kelp 6y ago
This reminds me of advice I got from the VP of Eng at my first real full time tech job. This was back around late 1999 / early 2000. Peak of the dot com era. He told me what most people think of as job security is totally wrong. If you're the only person who knows something, you become a liability. But if you're constantly teaching and sharing that knowledge you become incredibly valuable to the organization. That's when you have job security. Since internalizing that advice, I always try to work myself out of job by ensuring I share anything I know. And I always pass this advice along to others. As you get more seniority in the organization, the way to have more impact and scale is to work through others by sharing your knowledge and helping them get better.
- Kagerjay 6y ago
  I'm in this boat right now-ish. I don't want to be the person who only knows somemthing. I'd rather delegate it and then if I get sick I know someone else can cover the work needed to get the job done. I just recently had my first junior developer assigned to me. Learning how to mentor, teach, as opposed to just getting a task done is harder than I imagined
  - kelp 6y ago
    Yeah, and it's particularly hard when you're still ultimately responsible for the result, but others are doing the work. That certainly brings some amount of stress. But also the money gets bigger and bigger.
  - alsetmusic 6y ago
    > Learning how to mentor, teach, as opposed to just getting a task done is harder than I imagined I've had the good fortune to inhabit a mentoring position twice in my professional career. Both have afforded me opportunities to teach new people as each business expands. I find mentoring incredibly rewarding. But I also naturally enjoy spreading knowledge (I considered a career change to teach history at the university level, but didn't want to pursue the academic credentials). It's not just teaching the tech that's rewarding. I also enjoy sharing time management techniques, tips for writing solid documentation, and pointing out how to avoid gotchas that I've run into in my personal experience. What I absolutely don't want is to join the ranks of management. A buddy recently moved up and he now spends almost all of his time in meetings. When he isn't in meetings, he's responding to the many people who need his attention for one thing or another. I wouldn't find that the least bit fulfilling. This is what strikes me as tone-deaf about the grandparent comment with regard to "loving your job." I love my job because it pays well enough, I like the people I work with, and it doesn't intrude into my "real life." I hated my former employment, where ambition was a thing, because it dominated my life. It paid far better, but I was unhappy overall. What I have strikes the right balance, and that's rare enough that I treasure it.
benja123 6y ago
Before I was a manager I used to always try and automate my job away. I was of course never able to completely do this and the result was never actually less work. Once you were able to automate away one task a new one would magically appear. Of course to my surprise me trying to automate away my tasks only increased my value to the companies I worked for and now I, as a manager, try to encourage my reports to do the same thing so that they can focus on more important projects and personal growth.

by gopalv 6y ago

busterarm 6y ago

I feel like I'm in a similar position on the automation side. I've automated so much of what I'm responsible for that it mostly runs itself without issue. There are certainly stretches of time where I work my ass off, but mostly it's days of a couple of hours of light work and then being available to help people via Slack the rest of the day.

gen220 6y ago

> I'm the guy with the picture that's on puzzle box, rather than having to place each puzzle piece. This is such a great phrase! It so succinctly captures a situation I think we've all observed many times, but I've always struggled to encode it in words. > I've tried really hard to make myself obsolete and do something else, but it has backfired spectacularly. How has this backfired, I'm curious? I'm imagining that the future-you's fail to seamlessly slot-in, and management types don't have an appetite for broken eggs on the way to an omelette, when they already have an omelette in you? > I'm useful and in essence acting as "an elder" store of information about the past & a slightly clearer view of the future. I wonder, do you feel any anxiety about this? As in, you're valuable at $COMPANY_X, but you're not challenged to better yourself beyond what you already are. Much of your value to $COMPANY_X derives from skills and knowledge that are specific to $COMPANY_X / $INDUSTRY. For me, the anxiety would come from the question "sure, I have this here and now, but would I be able to reproduce this elsewhere, or what this a fluke?", and it would increase with tenure. :) Curious to hear your thoughts on this, too.

gopalv 6y ago
> How has this backfired, I'm curious? .. > I'm imagining that the future-you's fail to seamlessly slot-in, and management types don't have an appetite for broken eggs on the way to an omelette, when they already have an omelette in you? No, not that way - I took about 9 months off in the last 4 years, which has forced a replacement of my past self. But there are still problems which are "new". So in a manner of speaking, but more along the lines of filtering out all the easy problems with automation, documentation, others with similar skills - by the time the buck stops at my desk, I have nowhere to move it to. Instead of being obsolete, I'm a SPOF higher up the problem complexity. The more guesswork I do, the better I am at guessing what's wrong and every time I pull off a further "last minute miracle", the more entrenched I become, rather than obsolete. > For me, the anxiety would come from the question "sure, I have this here and now, but would I be able to reproduce this elsewhere, or what this a fluke?" The success part of it was a total fluke - lots of bets on me by others which came through.
- swiftcoder 6y ago
  > Instead of being obsolete, I'm a SPOF higher up the problem complexity. This seems somewhat inevitable for "high performers". The only way round it I'm aware of is to hitch your wagon to an SPOF further up the chain.

kelp 6y ago

This reminds me of advice I got from the VP of Eng at my first real full time tech job. This was back around late 1999 / early 2000. Peak of the dot com era. He told me what most people think of as job security is totally wrong. If you're the only person who knows something, you become a liability. But if you're constantly teaching and sharing that knowledge you become incredibly valuable to the organization. That's when you have job security. Since internalizing that advice, I always try to work myself out of job by ensuring I share anything I know. And I always pass this advice along to others. As you get more seniority in the organization, the way to have more impact and scale is to work through others by sharing your knowledge and helping them get better.

Kagerjay 6y ago
I'm in this boat right now-ish. I don't want to be the person who only knows somemthing. I'd rather delegate it and then if I get sick I know someone else can cover the work needed to get the job done. I just recently had my first junior developer assigned to me. Learning how to mentor, teach, as opposed to just getting a task done is harder than I imagined
- kelp 6y ago
  Yeah, and it's particularly hard when you're still ultimately responsible for the result, but others are doing the work. That certainly brings some amount of stress. But also the money gets bigger and bigger.
- alsetmusic 6y ago
  > Learning how to mentor, teach, as opposed to just getting a task done is harder than I imagined I've had the good fortune to inhabit a mentoring position twice in my professional career. Both have afforded me opportunities to teach new people as each business expands. I find mentoring incredibly rewarding. But I also naturally enjoy spreading knowledge (I considered a career change to teach history at the university level, but didn't want to pursue the academic credentials). It's not just teaching the tech that's rewarding. I also enjoy sharing time management techniques, tips for writing solid documentation, and pointing out how to avoid gotchas that I've run into in my personal experience. What I absolutely don't want is to join the ranks of management. A buddy recently moved up and he now spends almost all of his time in meetings. When he isn't in meetings, he's responding to the many people who need his attention for one thing or another. I wouldn't find that the least bit fulfilling. This is what strikes me as tone-deaf about the grandparent comment with regard to "loving your job." I love my job because it pays well enough, I like the people I work with, and it doesn't intrude into my "real life." I hated my former employment, where ambition was a thing, because it dominated my life. It paid far better, but I was unhappy overall. What I have strikes the right balance, and that's rare enough that I treasure it.

benja123 6y ago

Before I was a manager I used to always try and automate my job away. I was of course never able to completely do this and the result was never actually less work. Once you were able to automate away one task a new one would magically appear. Of course to my surprise me trying to automate away my tasks only increased my value to the companies I worked for and now I, as a manager, try to encourage my reports to do the same thing so that they can focus on more important projects and personal growth.