4 ms·

Wait, why don't you want to help your colleagues? That seems pretty shitty.

by bokchoi 5y ago

anthomtb 5y ago
It’s entirely possible that his colleagues have no desire to be helped, which can happen in a shitty organization.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Seems like better time spent on looking at how to get out of shitty org than gaming the system
  - slingnow 5y ago
    I'd be curious to see why you're so confident that OP's time is better spent getting out of this organization where they can work 2 hours a day for what I assume is a decent living.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Financial wellness !== mental wellness.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Its funny how gaming the system is 'innovation' for bosses and 'cheating' for employees
johnisgood 5y ago
As long as it is only known to colleagues, it is all good, but if word gets out (and the more people know about it and/or use it, the likelier it is), then they may get more work to do and such. Maybe the coworkers do not give a damn either way.
yourapostasy 5y ago
A possible reason is stack ranking in annual reviews. I definitely see that in many of the people I work with at my clients. The more efficient staff members typically only share pretty trivial life hack-esque tips. Their comprehensive framework of all of their efficiency tricks? Kept in their heads. If they share it, they lose their edge against the peers they are ranked against. If they don't share it, they consistently are in the top 5-10% of employees with the most story points each sprint, and they get better raises. This is an easy decision for the employees to make. You get what you incentivize for.
aidenn0 5y ago
As a contractor, I once made a tool that made things easier for me. The "breakeven" time (time saved exceeded time spent writing it) was a day or two. I made the mistake of sharing this tool and was berated by the client. Every single time after that they made sure to remind me not to work on things "outside the scope" of the contract as apparently writing tools to increase the output they get per billed hour is out-of-scope.
BatteryMountain 5y ago
In some cases people play politics: some people are looking for places to find fault or point fingers to if they get stuck, so just limiting the amount of drama in my life. The code I built is like 500 lines of code, not that complex and any developer with half a brain can build it... so if they want, they can build it themselves. Why should I deprive them from learning how to empower themselves? Its a great learning experience to build tools around your current journey. And the tools are disposable btw. I've done this at every place I've worked. I have a small graveyard of tools of everything I've built in the past. And sometimes I go and copy code from it for a new tool and so forth. Every developer have a folder somewhere with some cool tools just for in case. If they don't... maybe they just don't care about programming as much as they think. It's like asking why a mechanic won't share a tool he built by himself for himself, to help him replace a certain part in a car, when he needed 4 arms but only had 2 at the time. He is not obligated to share his tool with the world and keeping it isolated might save lives (lets say there is some risk that someone might die in the case of a malfunction). In the tech world, php comes to mind when I think about releasing things into the wild. I try not to inflict onto others with what is in my head, because how I view the world and how I like to work is not necessarily how other people think. I work in the Healthcare domain, specifically with medicine and formularies. It is utterly important that we do things correctly. If I share my tools with the others and they misuse it or something goes wrong, and there are real world consequences (a patient gets the wrong medicine/dosage/box or data gets corrupted), then I can guarantee you they will point their finger at me and throw me under 50 different busses. I'm not going to risk that for no good reason. So it's not as simple and clear cut as just being shitty. I promise you it is not because of selfishness but rather about self preservation (not getting burnt) in conjunction easing my own suffering (cause most healthcare software is an utter shit show, thus my own tooling is just a band aid).

Wait, why don't you want to help your colleagues? That seems pretty shitty.

anthomtb 5y ago

It’s entirely possible that his colleagues have no desire to be helped, which can happen in a shitty organization.

dylan604 5y ago
Seems like better time spent on looking at how to get out of shitty org than gaming the system
- slingnow 5y ago
  I'd be curious to see why you're so confident that OP's time is better spent getting out of this organization where they can work 2 hours a day for what I assume is a decent living.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Financial wellness !== mental wellness.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Its funny how gaming the system is 'innovation' for bosses and 'cheating' for employees

johnisgood 5y ago

As long as it is only known to colleagues, it is all good, but if word gets out (and the more people know about it and/or use it, the likelier it is), then they may get more work to do and such. Maybe the coworkers do not give a damn either way.

yourapostasy 5y ago

A possible reason is stack ranking in annual reviews. I definitely see that in many of the people I work with at my clients. The more efficient staff members typically only share pretty trivial life hack-esque tips. Their comprehensive framework of all of their efficiency tricks? Kept in their heads. If they share it, they lose their edge against the peers they are ranked against. If they don't share it, they consistently are in the top 5-10% of employees with the most story points each sprint, and they get better raises. This is an easy decision for the employees to make. You get what you incentivize for.

aidenn0 5y ago

As a contractor, I once made a tool that made things easier for me. The "breakeven" time (time saved exceeded time spent writing it) was a day or two. I made the mistake of sharing this tool and was berated by the client. Every single time after that they made sure to remind me not to work on things "outside the scope" of the contract as apparently writing tools to increase the output they get per billed hour is out-of-scope.

BatteryMountain 5y ago

In some cases people play politics: some people are looking for places to find fault or point fingers to if they get stuck, so just limiting the amount of drama in my life. The code I built is like 500 lines of code, not that complex and any developer with half a brain can build it... so if they want, they can build it themselves. Why should I deprive them from learning how to empower themselves? Its a great learning experience to build tools around your current journey. And the tools are disposable btw. I've done this at every place I've worked. I have a small graveyard of tools of everything I've built in the past. And sometimes I go and copy code from it for a new tool and so forth. Every developer have a folder somewhere with some cool tools just for in case. If they don't... maybe they just don't care about programming as much as they think. It's like asking why a mechanic won't share a tool he built by himself for himself, to help him replace a certain part in a car, when he needed 4 arms but only had 2 at the time. He is not obligated to share his tool with the world and keeping it isolated might save lives (lets say there is some risk that someone might die in the case of a malfunction). In the tech world, php comes to mind when I think about releasing things into the wild. I try not to inflict onto others with what is in my head, because how I view the world and how I like to work is not necessarily how other people think. I work in the Healthcare domain, specifically with medicine and formularies. It is utterly important that we do things correctly. If I share my tools with the others and they misuse it or something goes wrong, and there are real world consequences (a patient gets the wrong medicine/dosage/box or data gets corrupted), then I can guarantee you they will point their finger at me and throw me under 50 different busses. I'm not going to risk that for no good reason. So it's not as simple and clear cut as just being shitty. I promise you it is not because of selfishness but rather about self preservation (not getting burnt) in conjunction easing my own suffering (cause most healthcare software is an utter shit show, thus my own tooling is just a band aid).