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The smartest people in the workforce know this. They aren't useless. They are perfectly capable of accomplishment, but know that taking on more responsibilitie

The smartest people in the workforce know this. They aren't useless. They are perfectly capable of accomplishment, but know that taking on more responsibilities or assisting will make them miserable in the long run. I've seen this with some of the highest ranking & paid engineers/PMs in big tech. I usually give the benefit of the doubt that everybody: 1. Has a sense of autonomy 2. Has a sense of competence 3. Has a sense of relatedness If at anytime any of these are put into jeopardy, a wonderful tactic is to "be useless". There's many bullshit jobs out there that use you and your abilities for the bullshit job holder's personal gain. This is one of the best tactics to take a stand for yourself in corporate America.

yboris 5y ago
I love CAR - Competence, Autonomy, Relatedness :D These three I think are the pillars to a happy job! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory#Basic_psychological_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory#Basi...
- chrisweekly 5y ago
  Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose were the three job satisfaction pillars in a popular RSAnimate whiteboard presentation video a few years ago... and it resonated with me (while feeling incomplete, given it omits social / interpersonal factors). EDIT: Found the video: https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc
  - thenerdhead 5y ago
    Very interesting! I've also seen this in a number of books about raising kids. The Self-Driven Child recently was the one on my mind.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
I see a lot of these comments on Reddit and HN recently, but I have no idea where all of these people are working that doesn't do any sort of performance management. Outside of maybe the biggest, oldest tech companies that have so much profit that nothing matters, companies really don't enjoy burning cash on useless headcount. It's hard to tell if they're even actually practicing what they preach, or if it's just a sort of escapist fiction. At every reasonably well-run company I've worked for, the "useless" people were steadily sifted out of the company, either through PIPs or routine layoffs. That doesn't mean you had to monotonically increase your workload forever until you were crushed, but it did mean that management routinely did basic performance management and would look deeper into people or groups that weren't really doing anything (including maintenance, upkeep, and routine tasks that don't necessarily involve new features). Another common technique is to periodically restructure and shuffle teams around. It may be easy for someone to wiggle into a position where they can be useless while fooling their manager, but it's much harder to maintain this state across multiple teams and even divisions.
- thenerdhead 5y ago
  I don't think this is about performance. At least I wasn't referring to it in my comment. I was just saying that top performers who I respect are very skilled at "being useless" when they need to maintain their autonomy, competence, and relatedness within their career in big tech. I don't know what you're seeing on reddit / hn, but there's also plenty of people talking about automating their "useless"/bullshit job and feeling guilty about it.
  - abakker 5y ago
    There’s also a lot of people with skills and very useful jobs, but who don’t need 40hrs/week to add a ton of value. Playing dumb for all the BS that could end up assigned to you is a reverse-performance-management hack that keeps your free and clear to put in the hours that really matter, when they really matter.
- zackify 5y ago
  If you can get the job done in 20 hours but you are supposed to work 40, I think that’s more of the mindset the parent comment is talking about. Doing the minimum to keep your job and staying a good employee, while not overworking.
  - katbyte 5y ago
    If you always give 100% you’ll burn out, and can never give more during a crises. If you default to 60%, you can burst to 100% when needed.
    - intortus 5y ago
      If you're a 10X slacker you can default to 6%.
- opportune 5y ago
  I don't get it either, I actually enjoy getting things done and being responsible (to the extent that is reasonable) as well. Doing nothing makes me feel like a piece of shit. Not because of some kind of societal conditioning about work being inherently virtuous, I think, but because it feels good to contribute to something larger than yourself, and I think we should endeavor to contribute to society proportionately to what we receive from it. This phenomenon of bragging about laziness or how little you work smells similar to the "I barely got any sleep last night" of yore. Considering how much we take from society (you can look at your pay as that, or the fact we reap the benefits of centuries of technological progress, or that we have extremely physically easy jobs compared to the majority of the world's population), I think we have a duty to contribute back. It's pretty disappointing to see people in the software industry advocate for laziness considering how plum our jobs are and how much potential we have to contribute to the world.
HollywoodZero 5y ago
Another, maybe even more simple approach is: the art of saying no. Corporate life today has this idea that we should always be doing more. Side hassles, taking on more. Putting in extra hours, etc. There's beauty in knowing when enough is enough and stepping back and making time for yourself.
- baby 5y ago
  I've always called that "learning to disappoint people". If you want to be a good and productive engineer, you have to defend your time and isolate yourself. You can't let anyone else be in control of your agenda. That means not answering to people promptly (or at all), saying no to projects, etc.
- thenerdhead 5y ago
  It's definitely part of the art. You have to put yourself first before other people's priorities.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I don’t know if “side hassles” was intentional or not, but it’s genius either way.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > Corporate life today has this idea that we should always be doing more. I too have this idea that corporations should always be doing more. Paying employees more. Offering more benefits. Paying more taxes.
opportune 5y ago
I'm having a hard time understanding your comment. Are you saying high performers will feign uselessness to get out of undesirable work or commitments? Or that being useless is a psychological defense mechanism for corporate survival? Something else?
- thenerdhead 5y ago
  All of the above.
icedchai 5y ago
Yep. Definitely. Especially now, as the pandemic rages on, why should one take on extra responsibility when they're stressed out? You'll wind up with a bunch of extra meetings, presentations, and bullshit you are able to do, but don't want to. Why bother? Some days I can barely get out of bed. Another tactic that works wonderfully is pacing yourself. For engineers, if you finish your "sprint goals" early, you run the risk getting assigned more. So don't do that. Use that free time. Your work still gets done on time and everyone's happy.

yboris 5y ago

I love CAR - Competence, Autonomy, Relatedness :D These three I think are the pillars to a happy job! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory#Basic_psychological_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory#Basi...

chrisweekly 5y ago
Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose were the three job satisfaction pillars in a popular RSAnimate whiteboard presentation video a few years ago... and it resonated with me (while feeling incomplete, given it omits social / interpersonal factors). EDIT: Found the video: https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc
- thenerdhead 5y ago
  Very interesting! I've also seen this in a number of books about raising kids. The Self-Driven Child recently was the one on my mind.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

I see a lot of these comments on Reddit and HN recently, but I have no idea where all of these people are working that doesn't do any sort of performance management. Outside of maybe the biggest, oldest tech companies that have so much profit that nothing matters, companies really don't enjoy burning cash on useless headcount. It's hard to tell if they're even actually practicing what they preach, or if it's just a sort of escapist fiction. At every reasonably well-run company I've worked for, the "useless" people were steadily sifted out of the company, either through PIPs or routine layoffs. That doesn't mean you had to monotonically increase your workload forever until you were crushed, but it did mean that management routinely did basic performance management and would look deeper into people or groups that weren't really doing anything (including maintenance, upkeep, and routine tasks that don't necessarily involve new features). Another common technique is to periodically restructure and shuffle teams around. It may be easy for someone to wiggle into a position where they can be useless while fooling their manager, but it's much harder to maintain this state across multiple teams and even divisions.

thenerdhead 5y ago
I don't think this is about performance. At least I wasn't referring to it in my comment. I was just saying that top performers who I respect are very skilled at "being useless" when they need to maintain their autonomy, competence, and relatedness within their career in big tech. I don't know what you're seeing on reddit / hn, but there's also plenty of people talking about automating their "useless"/bullshit job and feeling guilty about it.
- abakker 5y ago
  There’s also a lot of people with skills and very useful jobs, but who don’t need 40hrs/week to add a ton of value. Playing dumb for all the BS that could end up assigned to you is a reverse-performance-management hack that keeps your free and clear to put in the hours that really matter, when they really matter.
zackify 5y ago
If you can get the job done in 20 hours but you are supposed to work 40, I think that’s more of the mindset the parent comment is talking about. Doing the minimum to keep your job and staying a good employee, while not overworking.
- katbyte 5y ago
  If you always give 100% you’ll burn out, and can never give more during a crises. If you default to 60%, you can burst to 100% when needed.
  - intortus 5y ago
    If you're a 10X slacker you can default to 6%.
opportune 5y ago
I don't get it either, I actually enjoy getting things done and being responsible (to the extent that is reasonable) as well. Doing nothing makes me feel like a piece of shit. Not because of some kind of societal conditioning about work being inherently virtuous, I think, but because it feels good to contribute to something larger than yourself, and I think we should endeavor to contribute to society proportionately to what we receive from it. This phenomenon of bragging about laziness or how little you work smells similar to the "I barely got any sleep last night" of yore. Considering how much we take from society (you can look at your pay as that, or the fact we reap the benefits of centuries of technological progress, or that we have extremely physically easy jobs compared to the majority of the world's population), I think we have a duty to contribute back. It's pretty disappointing to see people in the software industry advocate for laziness considering how plum our jobs are and how much potential we have to contribute to the world.

HollywoodZero 5y ago

Another, maybe even more simple approach is: the art of saying no. Corporate life today has this idea that we should always be doing more. Side hassles, taking on more. Putting in extra hours, etc. There's beauty in knowing when enough is enough and stepping back and making time for yourself.

baby 5y ago
I've always called that "learning to disappoint people". If you want to be a good and productive engineer, you have to defend your time and isolate yourself. You can't let anyone else be in control of your agenda. That means not answering to people promptly (or at all), saying no to projects, etc.
thenerdhead 5y ago
It's definitely part of the art. You have to put yourself first before other people's priorities.
sokoloff 5y ago
I don’t know if “side hassles” was intentional or not, but it’s genius either way.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> Corporate life today has this idea that we should always be doing more. I too have this idea that corporations should always be doing more. Paying employees more. Offering more benefits. Paying more taxes.

opportune 5y ago

I'm having a hard time understanding your comment. Are you saying high performers will feign uselessness to get out of undesirable work or commitments? Or that being useless is a psychological defense mechanism for corporate survival? Something else?

thenerdhead 5y ago
All of the above.

icedchai 5y ago

Yep. Definitely. Especially now, as the pandemic rages on, why should one take on extra responsibility when they're stressed out? You'll wind up with a bunch of extra meetings, presentations, and bullshit you are able to do, but don't want to. Why bother? Some days I can barely get out of bed. Another tactic that works wonderfully is pacing yourself. For engineers, if you finish your "sprint goals" early, you run the risk getting assigned more. So don't do that. Use that free time. Your work still gets done on time and everyone's happy.