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I have met a few of those people, but every single one of them needed a justification. Some told me they felt wronged by the company somehow. For example they

• my_usernam3 4y ago
  My millage is that it's not absolute "dead weight". It's more wanting limited responsibility and tasks that require limited scope/time spent, but does actually contribute, just a much smaller scale than others. > The fact that they needed these excuses tells me they felt what they did to be morally wrong and didn't really want to be dead weight. My guess from your comment is that you judge them for being slackers, and the feel obligated to explain to YOU that its not morally correct. Personally, I have no qualm with those that want to drift around megacorps while collecting a nice paycheck.
  • throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
    Do you feel the same way about people who put effort in but are not skilled enough to contribute (or make things worse by trying)?
    • cutemonster 4y ago
      > people who put effort in ... make things worse Dead weight? Sounds more like friendly antimatter GP: > > I have no qualm with those that want to drift around megacorps For me, that depends on what the company is doing. Let's say it's mobile games or quant trading -- then, slacking at work in a way just gives people more time away from the computer (fewer games to play?). And changes which ones of the rich people, get richer. Then what does it matter. Whilst if one is working for a hospital or a stopping-online-manipulation department, then, in such cases, slacking is sad, not good for society, right
      • my_usernam3 4y ago
        > Whilst if one is working for a hos, pital or a stopping-online-manipulation department, not good for society, right Oh definitely. I'm under the (maybe wrong) assumption that the majority of people are not doing this. I believe most my peers in the silicon valley bubble I live in aren't really moving needles that benefit humanity.
• BeetleB 4y ago
  > or didn't get promoted when they felt they should have been, or they had contributed something and then it got cut from the product, something like that in most cases Can definitely speak to these cases - especially where you do great work and have a narrative that it was unappreciated - and clearly see lesser performing or less impressive colleagues getting ahead. For a lot of people, it takes only a few instances of this to switch to "I'll do the bare minimum not to get fired - why sacrifice much of my life and mental energy for this?" I've been there a few times, and to speak to your point: I decided that instead of being a dead weight I should just look for another job where I don't feel this way. I can say that amongst my peers, that behavior is an exception. Most people who become deadweights will remain that way. It's work to find a new job, and you may have to move, etc. Amusingly enough, Leetcode style interviews are effective at ensuring deadweights remain so.
  • deeptote 4y ago
    > Can definitely speak to these cases - especially where you do great work and have a narrative that it was unappreciated - and clearly see lesser performing or less impressive colleagues getting ahead. I did great work for a company and got fired... because I took a freelance w2 contract in my spare time. The company didn't even know that I'd taken on the role, and the role had actually finished, when they somehow did find out and I got my marching papers. FUCK working hard and FUCK doing "good" work.
    • BeetleB 4y ago
      Personally, I think disallowing other work should be illegal. Having said that: What was the policy at your workplace for other work? In my company it's clearly allowed if it's in a different industry - although they've not given clear guidance on whether I need to disclose it in those cases.
      • croes 4y ago
        Who said it's disallowed? They couldn't disallow because he didn't ask and that's more likely to be the problem.
• depereo 4y ago
  I turned into dead weight once during a hostile takeover of the company I was working for. It was pretty shit, and I'm glad I moved on after a few months of being unproductive. Management removed our ability to move forward on any existing work, and allocated no new work, and rejected any proposals from anyone from the 'old' company. Wound up spending most of my (remote) work day occasionally checking my work laptop for emails, working on personal projects on my personal laptop and gardening or doing some DIY fixes on our old house. Felt bad the entire time and finding a new job was a huge weight off my shoulders.
  • nkrisc 4y ago
    I had a coworker who ended up in a similar situation. At one point they were almost literally being paid to do nothing. They eventually stopped even going in to the office all while collecting a pay check. As nice as that sounds, it was still not a great situation because they didn't know how long it would last and figured eventually, without warning, they'd be dropped. They ended up leaving on their own to actually do something and have a more stable job.
    • tmaly 4y ago
      If you thing about what limited time we have on this earth, it seems like to better choice to find something you enjoy in the shortest amount of time.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    • ipaddr 4y ago
      I've been in this situation. Not knowing is the hard part. Don't waste this time, start a project and work like crazy on it because it never lasts.
    • holoduke 4y ago
      Ended up in a similar situation. Gave me time to start up my own company. Was 10 years ago. Company still running. Lucky I was.
• lhorie 4y ago
  People will always make up reasons if the tone of the conversation feels adversarial, but just spend a week in r/cscareerquestions to see the unfiltered sentiment: lots of people literally bragging about working 30 or even 20 hours per week as a full time employee, or who explicitly call out "slacking off" as a reason for preferring WFH. "Rest and vest". Etc.
  • feet 4y ago
    Or maybe those are just the people who spend time on reddit disproportionately, it could be sampling error
    • vehementi 4y ago
      Yeah, but the claim was that nobody was like this, while there are obviously a bunch of people explicitly doing this
      • feet 4y ago
        What percentage of the population is that person's cutoff for saying "nobody"? My assumption is that it likely was not literal If 3/80000 people do something, is the behavior significant or relevant?
        • actually_a_dog 4y ago
          Depends what the behavior is and who the 3 people are.
          • feet 4y ago
            The behavior is already defined in this thread Do only famous people matter? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
      • Beldin 4y ago
        ...explicitly claiming to do this. I don't know that subreddit; in general this sort of thing could become the thing being bragged about in a community, irrespective of reality.
• dominotw 4y ago
  > I have met a few of those people, but every single one of them needed a justification. Nah man. They just want to chillax. I know because i was one of them at some of my jobs. I don't get any satisfaction from crud/etl type jobs at all. I just want to a paycheck to fund my lifestyle and hobbies. I know tons of people like me , like 50% of my friend circle. Ppl just don't give a shit.
• darth_avocado 4y ago
  I am not a dead weight and I’ll never be, but I also do absolutely bare minimum to not get fired. And by bare minimum, I mean, I will always finish my work in the time it is expected to be finished. And if the expectations are higher, I’ll move on to another job. I do this as a way to get back at corporate America. Too many companies get away with sucking out their employees dry and firing them once they can’t meet the unreasonable expectations that are set for them. You could be dying of cancer or have lost a child, and they will get rid of you the moment they can do so without breaking the law, and in some cases even break the law in the hopes that you’d not pursue any legal action. Nah don’t work hard, work smart, for yourself.
  • throwawaylinux 4y ago
    Hell of a way to go through life though. "Corporate America" doesn't care in the slightest bit. It's an unthinking unfeeling machine.
  • groffee 4y ago
    > I am not a dead weight and I’ll never be, but I also do absolutely bare minimum to not get fired. That's the literal definition of dead weight.
    • fcatalan 4y ago
      Dead weight would be people doing nothing. After those come the negative contributors: they do stuff but is all politicking and scheming, or just waste others time. Doing strictly what you are really paid for is bad now?
      • toomuchtodo 4y ago
        “Enough” is not in the vocabulary of corporate vampires. Doing your job to the requirements should be acceptable, and that only works if your org is run by empathetic, reasonable leadership, you don’t tolerate the abuse of being squeezed, or you have a union. If the bar is never enough, you’re being gaslit, and that’s psychological abuse.
• AmericanChopper 4y ago
  > I have met a few of those people, but every single one of them needed a justification. This isn’t true at all in my experience. I’ve contracted at many places that simply had a culture of avoiding work. Where a majority of the permanent employees hardly do any work, their main focus is coming up with reasons why problems are somebody else’s problems to solve, and avoiding accountability for anything that goes wrong. The pandemic and WFH has made this a lot worse in many companies. Out of the dozens of large orgs I’ve contracted to, far more of them had these problems than didn’t.
• WalterBright 4y ago
  People who do things they know are wrong will always conjure up an explanation that absolves them of any culpability. They'll even believe it themselves. For example, people who steal office supplies from work always have a good reason they tell themselves. For another, all the people who post on Hackernews justifying cheating in college. My favorite bullshit excuse was cheating was justified because the professor didn't expend much effort with countermeasures.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• aydyn 4y ago
  Or did a huge amount of work on a project, didn't get properly credited or worse, had their credit stolen by some other employee. When there's little correlation between amount of effort and advancement as is very often the case, it's justified to just cruise. I don't see it as "morally wrong but they didn't really want to be dead weight" when it is a justified response.
• baka367 4y ago
  Another concern that is very prevailing is rewards. I could work 2 times harder in my current position, however what is that going to bring me? Promotion or bigger bonus - it’s the same as playing stock options with your time, you are better off playing office politics for a much better RoI. Self value? Senior engineer in FAANG is almost never going to have REAL impact, so I can only enjoy thinking that someone cares about that tiny piece of software that I work with. Again, getting drunk is a better RoI. Same with self improvement… where side project usually allows one to grow more So, what is the benefit of working harder?
  • imtringued 4y ago
    There is none, modern humans are so productive they struggle to think of things to work on, they should just work fewer hours.
• eek2121 4y ago
  If you view people as dead weight, that is the problem. Few folks that make a decent salary want to do the bare minimum. Only managers that treat them as such will call them 'dead weight'. Note that I'm not claiming you to be a manager, however your viewpoint of these employees reflects some of the managers I've dealt with. I once worked at a company who provided zero training, zero documentation, very poor pay, and no possibility of anything despite offering the world when I joined. I was told by my manager that I was dead weight. I was fired by HR. The situation did not end well for them, legally, or in terms of coworkers leaving. In my experience working in software development, I've encountered only one person who was dead weight, and he ended up leaving on his own. I've been doing this for close to 20 years mind you. I've seen many accused of being dead weight, and sure, some could have tried harder, but most simply struggled with the mess that was the code we were working on. The symptoms were common: no documentation, hostile management demanding tight deadlines, and poor communication.
• bagacrap 4y ago
  or, they felt being a dead weight was wrong, but wanted to be one, so came up with a justification. If they actually didn't want to be dead weight they'd work in spite of their situation.
• flomo 4y ago
  Was going to disagree, because you portrayed this as as "unjust personal affront". I mean like everyone who ever got fired from McDonalds thinks "my boss irrationally hates me." But on reflection this happens frequently, not due to personal reasons, but due to corporate politics. Side A won the war, so side B just punches the clock until whenever they get around to layoffs. In any big company, there's going to be a bunh of teams where "they know, but we haven't told them yet".