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Once there was an old engineer retiring from a company after working there for many years. He's their top notch guy and knew their system inside out. Couple m
by ww520 5y ago
Once there was an old engineer retiring from a company after working there for many years. He's their top notch guy and knew their system inside out. Couple months later the biggest machine in the company stopped working, costing the company millions in lost production. No one could fix it. In desperation the manager called the engineer to come in to take a look. The engineer looked around the machine for a few minutes. He put a chalk mark on the machine and told them to use a hammer to bang on it. They did and the machine was running again. The manager was very thankful and told the engineer to send in the bill for the repair. The engineer sent them a bill for $100,001.50. The manager called him and was upset for such a huge bill over a small repair. The engineer replied, $1.50 for the chalk and $100K for knowing where to bang the machine.
You sir are a knowledge worker. Companies pay you for your knowledge, your experience, and your ability to solve problems. They are willing to pay you to sit around so that they can call you to work on something at the moment's notice. People are willing to pay reserved instances in AWS though the reserved machines do nothing most of the time. It's called reserving capacity. Same in your case.
- soneca 5y agoI don’t think OP is solving any problems
- ww520 5y agoWell, he got great reviews, so his managers must have thought he made enough contributions.
- khazhoux 5y agoWell, when you bullshit your teammates all year and tell them every day "Ah, I'm still working on this problem, it's a real tough one" (when really you're at home watching YouTube all day)... and every three weeks you say "OK, I'm done with this tough problem -- next!" (when really you could have gotten it done in two days)... and the schedule drags out but no blames you because, after all, you tell everyone at standup how busy you've been... and in your review self-assessment, you use big descriptions for every small thing you bothered to do, knowing your manager isn't enough in the details to realize it... then, yeah, at the end of the year, you've successfully suckered your manager into giving you a great review.
- Apocryphon 5y agoSounds like 1) something about the business is either too inefficient to account for such a low-output performer OR it's efficient enough to get by even with low output, and 2) their manager and team are not doing their jobs in keeping them honest. Either way, this true impostor situation you're describing doesn't seem to represent the OP. It sounds like a lot of work, which they ain't doing. It doesn't sound like they're some sort of master of disguise engaged in an elaborate con.
- NumberCruncher 5y agoBeing a butt in a seat while your manager justifies his position with "someone has to manage the butts in seats" and his manager justifies his position with "someone has to manage the managers of butts in seats" solves a small part of a big problem.