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If you can't tell that your employees are actually doing work without one of these tools then what are you paying them for? What computer job has no externall

by Spivak 3y ago

If you can't tell that your employees are actually doing work without one of these tools then what are you paying them for? What computer job has no externally visible sign of work being done except "looks busy?"

exe34 3y ago
Middle management.
playingalong 3y ago
I don't agree with it myself... ... but more often than you would hope any maintenance work is considered like this. System maintenance, codebase maintenance. Even some sorts of support too.
mckn1ght 3y ago
And if people are resting and vesting, even if it’s not a pay issue, there’s definitely a culture issue in the company. You also need good examples from leadership, good recognition of good work, good ways to provide both positive and negative feedback, good roadmap planning, choose the “right” things to work on that are both intellectually challenging and provide good value for customers, have good engineering processes in place that minimize gatekeepers and pedantic bikeshedding… Not to say any of that is easy. Just that the natural consequence of getting too much of it wrong is that people just mentally check out.
- vehementi 3y ago
  I'm on a non-tech-related Vancouver discord server, and I can name 10 people on there who work in tech and actively try to do the least they can get away with at jobs, or work multiple jobs secretly, etc. and not one of them complains about money. You can no-true-Corporationsman it if you want but there are a lot of people who are naturally actively shady like that.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    Doing the least you can at work is also called "meeting expectations." Why are you going above and beyond to create value you won't capture? If someone is willing to pay you a lot for not doing much and is happy with your output then what's the issue? People working multiple jobs is typically a sign of hard work. They could be playing Xbox instead but they chose more work. Spinning working on things that no one asked you to do to fill the free time can't be better for you or the economy than doing useful work somewhere else. Like yeah sure it's probably a violation of your employment contract or whatever but ignoring the rules is practically the west coast hacker spirit. And ethically I have no issue with it at all. You can pay for hours or output, when I meet my output goals the excess hours are mine back. Folks will unironically joke "the reward for hard work is more work," put zero additional thought into it, work hard and wake up 10 years later burnt out, getting 2% raises, with their job consuming their whole lives.
    - vehementi 3y ago
      I am kinda tiring of seeing this rationalization. Don't you see, it's on the company to fire you if your productivity is low! Feel free to do nothing or as little as possible! That's such trash. If you're in software and are being honest you know we are not being paid for our output. Where are you working where the understanding is that if you get assigned a task for the week and finish it in one hour, it is common knowledge between you and your management chain that you have the rest of the week off and the CEO says "nice, see ya!"? Where your team says the same and doesn't look at you sideways? No, we aren't being paid for output, we are being paid for being as productive as we can (sustainably) for the generally accepted hours (9-5 or whatever your company says), and continually improving our skills. There is a general extreme difficulty to measure and track and enforce that (because as we all know, estimation is hard and shit happens) which is where trust comes in and why companies are so vulnerable to people working less and lying about it -- it's super difficult to verify.
      - mckn1ght 3y ago
        Wanted to chime back in to say I agree with you here and on your previous reply. I should’ve been clearer but I was talking about if the resting/vesting is endemic. Yes, there are always going to be people who will skate by as easily as possible. Hard to avoid completely in a gold rush, but I do believe that a company with better culture can suss it out better. I do think there’s a limit to how much more work should be taken on once you finish planned tasks, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything either. People saying that are, like you said, just rationalizing their own lazy/exploitative attitude. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect someone to try to get ahead, and keep a company as competitive as possible, if they’re able to finish tasks faster and still staying within a healthy set of working hours. Nobody is asking for 80 hour weeks here. 20 is just unreasonable as 80 when you’re making a ”full time“ tech salary. If you’re vesting, it’s in your best interests to stay competitive. Otherwise you’re riding on your coworkers’ coattails. All while probably complaining about the ultracapitalism of the C-suite. They’d step into their shoes in a heartbeat.
vehementi 3y ago
All software development? You can work at 25% pace and get away with it at most places. Sandbag, attend lots of meetings, be "blocked" by things often, etc. It's not about literally producing nothing, it's about working from 11-2 (or whatever, depends on what these people try to get away with)

by Spivak 3y ago

exe34 3y ago

Middle management.

playingalong 3y ago

I don't agree with it myself... ... but more often than you would hope any maintenance work is considered like this. System maintenance, codebase maintenance. Even some sorts of support too.

mckn1ght 3y ago

And if people are resting and vesting, even if it’s not a pay issue, there’s definitely a culture issue in the company. You also need good examples from leadership, good recognition of good work, good ways to provide both positive and negative feedback, good roadmap planning, choose the “right” things to work on that are both intellectually challenging and provide good value for customers, have good engineering processes in place that minimize gatekeepers and pedantic bikeshedding… Not to say any of that is easy. Just that the natural consequence of getting too much of it wrong is that people just mentally check out.

vehementi 3y ago
I'm on a non-tech-related Vancouver discord server, and I can name 10 people on there who work in tech and actively try to do the least they can get away with at jobs, or work multiple jobs secretly, etc. and not one of them complains about money. You can no-true-Corporationsman it if you want but there are a lot of people who are naturally actively shady like that.
- Spivak 3y ago
  Doing the least you can at work is also called "meeting expectations." Why are you going above and beyond to create value you won't capture? If someone is willing to pay you a lot for not doing much and is happy with your output then what's the issue? People working multiple jobs is typically a sign of hard work. They could be playing Xbox instead but they chose more work. Spinning working on things that no one asked you to do to fill the free time can't be better for you or the economy than doing useful work somewhere else. Like yeah sure it's probably a violation of your employment contract or whatever but ignoring the rules is practically the west coast hacker spirit. And ethically I have no issue with it at all. You can pay for hours or output, when I meet my output goals the excess hours are mine back. Folks will unironically joke "the reward for hard work is more work," put zero additional thought into it, work hard and wake up 10 years later burnt out, getting 2% raises, with their job consuming their whole lives.
  - vehementi 3y ago
    I am kinda tiring of seeing this rationalization. Don't you see, it's on the company to fire you if your productivity is low! Feel free to do nothing or as little as possible! That's such trash. If you're in software and are being honest you know we are not being paid for our output. Where are you working where the understanding is that if you get assigned a task for the week and finish it in one hour, it is common knowledge between you and your management chain that you have the rest of the week off and the CEO says "nice, see ya!"? Where your team says the same and doesn't look at you sideways? No, we aren't being paid for output, we are being paid for being as productive as we can (sustainably) for the generally accepted hours (9-5 or whatever your company says), and continually improving our skills. There is a general extreme difficulty to measure and track and enforce that (because as we all know, estimation is hard and shit happens) which is where trust comes in and why companies are so vulnerable to people working less and lying about it -- it's super difficult to verify.
    - mckn1ght 3y ago
      Wanted to chime back in to say I agree with you here and on your previous reply. I should’ve been clearer but I was talking about if the resting/vesting is endemic. Yes, there are always going to be people who will skate by as easily as possible. Hard to avoid completely in a gold rush, but I do believe that a company with better culture can suss it out better. I do think there’s a limit to how much more work should be taken on once you finish planned tasks, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything either. People saying that are, like you said, just rationalizing their own lazy/exploitative attitude. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect someone to try to get ahead, and keep a company as competitive as possible, if they’re able to finish tasks faster and still staying within a healthy set of working hours. Nobody is asking for 80 hour weeks here. 20 is just unreasonable as 80 when you’re making a ”full time“ tech salary. If you’re vesting, it’s in your best interests to stay competitive. Otherwise you’re riding on your coworkers’ coattails. All while probably complaining about the ultracapitalism of the C-suite. They’d step into their shoes in a heartbeat.

vehementi 3y ago

All software development? You can work at 25% pace and get away with it at most places. Sandbag, attend lots of meetings, be "blocked" by things often, etc. It's not about literally producing nothing, it's about working from 11-2 (or whatever, depends on what these people try to get away with)