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And even if you can manage to find things to do to occupy the time and appear busy, you'll be lucky if management considers the importance of your work and sche

And even if you can manage to find things to do to occupy the time and appear busy, you'll be lucky if management considers the importance of your work and schedule it with the rest of your workload. One too many times have I had to find something to do and spend weeks or months on that thing only to have management tell me to immediately stop working on it even though that thing was actually important. This may not seem different from just being "on", but I find that having real work be tossed in the garbage is even more demoralizing than milling around and not really doing anything.

wreath 5y ago
Someone here on HN once mentioned that they cleaned or worked on their deck or whatever while working and nobody cared. I did the same (well, no deck but other stuff) when i had long stretches of downtime or notice that nobody else cares as much as I do about the project. Same result, nobody gave a fuck really. I don't think it's sustainable, but whatever.
quickthrower2 5y ago
Ideally the thing you spend time on should be something you can use outside the org. E.g. learn k8s.
- Juliate 5y ago
  That’s if you’re not already frozen regarding the field. I’m exactly in this spot right now. And yes, self-training on side quests like k8s or anything related to the field looks nice on the paper. The problem comes from when 1/ you already associated all these training with the field you’re working in, and it feels helpless and boring, 2/ you still feel somehow disloyal to use your time like that.
  - orzig 5y ago
    Yeah, a good manager can fix that in 30 seconds (by giving you explicit permission to learn), but a surprising portion don’t think too.
RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 5y ago
> [...] having real work be tossed in the garbage is [...] demoralizing [...] This happened to me a few years ago. I got assigned to work on a small greenfield project solo. I had virtually full creative control, and it would solve a real imminent problem for the team. Sounds like a dream project, right? And it was for the ~1 month or so I worked on it, got positive feedback from the team, etc. However, with a stroke of a (figurative) pen, the project's no longer needed and was scrapped. The manager found more money in the team's budget. I can't say I disagreed with the decision: often it _is_ better to just throw money to make a problem go away. I felt bummed out nonetheless. _That_ I could live with, but getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review, now that really stung. My story might have a happy ending though. A few months ago the same problem resurfaced, this time due to a different, company-wide constraint. The lead dev solicited solutions, and I couldn't help but feel a bit smug inside when I said "um, remember that project I worked on a few years ago? I basically have your solution on a platter." We'll see: who knows maybe the manager will somehow carve out an exception for our team. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review I don’t think I could have lived with that if that was done to me. I’d either resign on the spot or shortly after.
  - RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 5y ago
    Without divulging specifics, around the same time something happened in my personal life. I needed, and family members who depended on me needed, the money and stability. A bruised ego is a small price to pay for the safety of my family and dependents, so I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it. dang, erase that GP.[0] [0] With apologies to _In The Pale Moonlight_
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      Yeah, that sucks. I’m in the position now where I’d likely be fine until I found a new position, so the equation changes a bit. Either way, I don’t expect my current employer to do something like that :)
Damogran6 5y ago
I'm on the part of my career journey where I've realized you're _JUST_ exchanging time for money. They want you to work on something that gets thrown away? It paid for the mortgage, it made a car payment, it's thrown away JUST like 99.9% of the stuff I did for the first 10 years of my career. It's GOING to happen, best not to get too caught up in it. Going into SIEM build #8 in my life....it's just another SIEM. I take my enjoyment in the people, the compensation is adequate, it's contributing to a retirement that's getting nearer and more comfortable all the time. I try not to get too hung up on the work product.
- scaramanga 5y ago
  I really find interesting the juxtaposition here. On the one hand, if the person is not given productive work to do and decides to just go for a jog then they must be racked by guilt for being a slacker, like GP. But if our organisations are diverting people's productive energy into unproductive waste, they need not feel any guilt about it at all since it is absolutely self-evident that this is the best and most productive of all possible economic systems. In the first case, you are maladjusted because you are performing self-punishment to appease feelings of guilt about failing to live up to your own ideals. Another way to think about it is that you are just experiencing the inability to reconcile your basic human need to be a productive member of your community with the reality that your community is dysfunctional and has no interest or ability to provide a healthy psychological environment for its members. In the second case, you are well-adjusted because you recognise that the society is just a machine and you are using the machine to get whatever you can out of it. Okay, it's not providing for the health and wealth of the community and the emotional needs or psychological well-being of it's constituents is either a non-goal or a goal it fails to achieve. But it does pay money. And you definitely do need money because money can provide for your physical needs. And while it can help with your other needs, you've already traded off the majority of your time and energy so, at best, you can maybe balm some of the damage that's been done by having a huge part of your life voided out. I sometimes wonder, if I were some alien species keeping humans as animals in a zoo, would I would want to view them in this condition, or would it be too disturbing to see animals being maintained in an environment that is so impoverished?

wreath 5y ago

Someone here on HN once mentioned that they cleaned or worked on their deck or whatever while working and nobody cared. I did the same (well, no deck but other stuff) when i had long stretches of downtime or notice that nobody else cares as much as I do about the project. Same result, nobody gave a fuck really. I don't think it's sustainable, but whatever.

quickthrower2 5y ago

Ideally the thing you spend time on should be something you can use outside the org. E.g. learn k8s.

Juliate 5y ago
That’s if you’re not already frozen regarding the field. I’m exactly in this spot right now. And yes, self-training on side quests like k8s or anything related to the field looks nice on the paper. The problem comes from when 1/ you already associated all these training with the field you’re working in, and it feels helpless and boring, 2/ you still feel somehow disloyal to use your time like that.
- orzig 5y ago
  Yeah, a good manager can fix that in 30 seconds (by giving you explicit permission to learn), but a surprising portion don’t think too.

RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 5y ago

> [...] having real work be tossed in the garbage is [...] demoralizing [...] This happened to me a few years ago. I got assigned to work on a small greenfield project solo. I had virtually full creative control, and it would solve a real imminent problem for the team. Sounds like a dream project, right? And it was for the ~1 month or so I worked on it, got positive feedback from the team, etc. However, with a stroke of a (figurative) pen, the project's no longer needed and was scrapped. The manager found more money in the team's budget. I can't say I disagreed with the decision: often it _is_ better to just throw money to make a problem go away. I felt bummed out nonetheless. _That_ I could live with, but getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review, now that really stung. My story might have a happy ending though. A few months ago the same problem resurfaced, this time due to a different, company-wide constraint. The lead dev solicited solutions, and I couldn't help but feel a bit smug inside when I said "um, remember that project I worked on a few years ago? I basically have your solution on a platter." We'll see: who knows maybe the manager will somehow carve out an exception for our team. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Aeolun 5y ago
> getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review I don’t think I could have lived with that if that was done to me. I’d either resign on the spot or shortly after.
- RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 5y ago
  Without divulging specifics, around the same time something happened in my personal life. I needed, and family members who depended on me needed, the money and stability. A bruised ego is a small price to pay for the safety of my family and dependents, so I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it. dang, erase that GP.[0] [0] With apologies to _In The Pale Moonlight_
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Yeah, that sucks. I’m in the position now where I’d likely be fine until I found a new position, so the equation changes a bit. Either way, I don’t expect my current employer to do something like that :)

Damogran6 5y ago

I'm on the part of my career journey where I've realized you're _JUST_ exchanging time for money. They want you to work on something that gets thrown away? It paid for the mortgage, it made a car payment, it's thrown away JUST like 99.9% of the stuff I did for the first 10 years of my career. It's GOING to happen, best not to get too caught up in it. Going into SIEM build #8 in my life....it's just another SIEM. I take my enjoyment in the people, the compensation is adequate, it's contributing to a retirement that's getting nearer and more comfortable all the time. I try not to get too hung up on the work product.

scaramanga 5y ago
I really find interesting the juxtaposition here. On the one hand, if the person is not given productive work to do and decides to just go for a jog then they must be racked by guilt for being a slacker, like GP. But if our organisations are diverting people's productive energy into unproductive waste, they need not feel any guilt about it at all since it is absolutely self-evident that this is the best and most productive of all possible economic systems. In the first case, you are maladjusted because you are performing self-punishment to appease feelings of guilt about failing to live up to your own ideals. Another way to think about it is that you are just experiencing the inability to reconcile your basic human need to be a productive member of your community with the reality that your community is dysfunctional and has no interest or ability to provide a healthy psychological environment for its members. In the second case, you are well-adjusted because you recognise that the society is just a machine and you are using the machine to get whatever you can out of it. Okay, it's not providing for the health and wealth of the community and the emotional needs or psychological well-being of it's constituents is either a non-goal or a goal it fails to achieve. But it does pay money. And you definitely do need money because money can provide for your physical needs. And while it can help with your other needs, you've already traded off the majority of your time and energy so, at best, you can maybe balm some of the damage that's been done by having a huge part of your life voided out. I sometimes wonder, if I were some alien species keeping humans as animals in a zoo, would I would want to view them in this condition, or would it be too disturbing to see animals being maintained in an environment that is so impoverished?