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I like to measure things. In real life and on computers. But I also have a couple of work reasons for it: As a remote worker, I'm under extra pressure to prove

I like to measure things. In real life and on computers. But I also have a couple of work reasons for it: As a remote worker, I'm under extra pressure to prove that remoteness works. As a senior employee, I'm also under pressure to regularly report where my time is spent.

mi_lk 10mo ago
It's your personal blog though. But again nothing wrong with turning that into a form of LinkedIn post
lopmkoihl 10mo ago
> I'm under extra pressure to prove that remoteness works. Did keeping track and reporting that number help prove this?
- yvdriess 10mo ago
  It doesn't need to prove that. It needs to produce plausible data that appeases either your direct or +1 manager.
zx8080 10mo ago
Yeah, it's how everywhere is measured. But I like to remember Joel Spolsky's takes on measuring everything, including his famous book and blog: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/08/09/the-econ-101-management-method/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/08/09/the-econ-101-manag...
- graemep 10mo ago
  Contrary to the usual opinion on HN, this provides a good reason to do an MBA! You should learn enough economics that if you are even a bit insightful you will avoid Econ 101 thinking, you will learn about things like intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and a lot of other things relevant to management.
  - dh2022 10mo ago
    My MBA program mentioned in passing intrinsic / extrinsic motivation in the Ethics class - which in my program did not even have a final exam :). Most of the time was spent on cost cutting, customer vs producer surplus, profit margins, efficient markets theory, lots marketing, lots of "the purpose of a commercial enterprise is to make money for its owner" said in different ways, and maybe some operations analysis.
- jama211 10mo ago
  This is great, thank you for sharing
GoblinSlayer 10mo ago
>As a remote worker, I'm under extra pressure to prove that remoteness works. You were delegated a manager's job? >As a senior employee, I'm also under pressure to regularly report where my time is spent. Normally, this is stored in the time tracker, not in your memory.
- BoredPositron 10mo ago
  In corps tracking hours is only for the grunts...
  - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
    Exactly, I can’t imagine that a “senior” developer needs to track everything that carefully. Hell I work at a consulting company full time as a staff consultant where we do have to record hours and I don’t go into any detail whether I’m on or off a project.
hodgesrm 10mo ago
We like that you like to measure things. That's why I bought your book.
rjzzleep 10mo ago
If only I had known that in the past, I even once received the completely wrong advice to "not stand out, since your work will speak for itself and you will get recognition".
- pas 10mo ago
  It depends on the company culture. (Fancy US tech companies like to be very selective, have a competitive mindset, hire "the best" according to their filters, and then want people to show how amazing they are, uu, so much impact, woah... and in effect people need to constantly manage upwards. While in many other companies, or "orgs", having a good team cohesion is more important. To blend in a bit, get accepted even if it means foregoing some ambition.) That said it's always good to have receipts.
  - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
    Having good team cohesion is all well and good. But when it’s time to get promoted, what are you going to say “I pulled well defined Jira tickets off the board”? When you get ready to interview for your n+1 job, and you spent months grinding leetCode and practicing reversing a btree on the white board, get to the behavioral interview and I ask “what accomplishment are you most proud of?”, what are you going to say “I worked with my team and we together closed 20 story points a week”? I have given the thumbs down to a lot of candidates this year alone who couldn’t discuss something that they took ownership of or where they stood out.
kmarc 10mo ago
Damned is this industry, when even _you_ say you have to show that "remoteness works". I also measure meetings (counts, lengths, and mostly meeting minutes/outine jotted down by myself) and keep track of other metrics, exactly for this reason. However, I also don't happen to have written best selling books and stuff, so I really must do this, and you really shouldn't have to :-)
- pm90 10mo ago
  I have more respect for him because he chose to do this. It’s probably clear that he doesn’t have to, at all. But he’s choosing not to rely on his (somewhat) tech celebrity status and deliver on measurable outcomes.
  - ghaff 10mo ago
    Not that I've ever been especially religious about it but it's probably a good thing to keep track of activities, especially those that directly affect customers. It's pretty easy/low-effort and is useful to be able to pull out.
boringg 10mo ago
Do you have a particularly easy way to track or are you kind of doing the same thing as consultant and logging your dailies? Always drove me a bit crazy having to do that admin piece every day.
raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
As a senior employee. This is just the opposite of what I would expect. (I’m not the author of this) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46146451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46146451 As a senior employee first at a startup from 2018-2020 and then as a staff engineer at a consulting company for the last year (with a 4 year at BigTech detour between), no one really micromanages me. Even at the consulting company, when I am on a project, I just put 40 hours in Salesforce with the project I’m assigned to - with no details - or put “bench” - again with no details. Why would my company care? The customer is happy, the project is managed through Jira (where I as the lead create the tasks) and my company gets paid when the project is done. I am sure I ask for feedback after every project in our peer review system.
- izacus 10mo ago
  Note how the author doesn't work for tiny little companies like you.
  - lokar 10mo ago
    As a principal at big tech I has essentially full autonomy to do what I thought was highest value with very little need to report anything.
    - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
      Exactly this. I’m still friends with my former manager at AWS who is now an L7 “very important person” over a service there and another former coworker who is a tech lead over another service. He’s an L6. I can guarantee you neither of them are being micromanaged and have mostly autonomy. I’m sure they have to deal with OP1 goals (? It’s been awhile I think that’s the term). Hell I was a lowly L5 consultant who they only entrusted to small projects and slices over larger projects (fair I only had 2 years of AWS experience at the time) and no one micromanaged me as long as I was doing my job. I flew out to customers sites by myself to lead work and my manager rarely knew what I was doing. I would go weeks without talking to him.
  - 10mo ago
kappi 10mo ago
measuring number of meetings seems deflection of actual output!

mi_lk 10mo ago

It's your personal blog though. But again nothing wrong with turning that into a form of LinkedIn post

lopmkoihl 10mo ago

> I'm under extra pressure to prove that remoteness works. Did keeping track and reporting that number help prove this?

yvdriess 10mo ago
It doesn't need to prove that. It needs to produce plausible data that appeases either your direct or +1 manager.

zx8080 10mo ago

Yeah, it's how everywhere is measured. But I like to remember Joel Spolsky's takes on measuring everything, including his famous book and blog: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/08/09/the-econ-101-management-method/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/08/09/the-econ-101-manag...

graemep 10mo ago
Contrary to the usual opinion on HN, this provides a good reason to do an MBA! You should learn enough economics that if you are even a bit insightful you will avoid Econ 101 thinking, you will learn about things like intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and a lot of other things relevant to management.
- dh2022 10mo ago
  My MBA program mentioned in passing intrinsic / extrinsic motivation in the Ethics class - which in my program did not even have a final exam :). Most of the time was spent on cost cutting, customer vs producer surplus, profit margins, efficient markets theory, lots marketing, lots of "the purpose of a commercial enterprise is to make money for its owner" said in different ways, and maybe some operations analysis.
jama211 10mo ago
This is great, thank you for sharing

GoblinSlayer 10mo ago

>As a remote worker, I'm under extra pressure to prove that remoteness works. You were delegated a manager's job? >As a senior employee, I'm also under pressure to regularly report where my time is spent. Normally, this is stored in the time tracker, not in your memory.

BoredPositron 10mo ago
In corps tracking hours is only for the grunts...
- raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
  Exactly, I can’t imagine that a “senior” developer needs to track everything that carefully. Hell I work at a consulting company full time as a staff consultant where we do have to record hours and I don’t go into any detail whether I’m on or off a project.

hodgesrm 10mo ago

We like that you like to measure things. That's why I bought your book.

rjzzleep 10mo ago

If only I had known that in the past, I even once received the completely wrong advice to "not stand out, since your work will speak for itself and you will get recognition".

pas 10mo ago
It depends on the company culture. (Fancy US tech companies like to be very selective, have a competitive mindset, hire "the best" according to their filters, and then want people to show how amazing they are, uu, so much impact, woah... and in effect people need to constantly manage upwards. While in many other companies, or "orgs", having a good team cohesion is more important. To blend in a bit, get accepted even if it means foregoing some ambition.) That said it's always good to have receipts.
- raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
  Having good team cohesion is all well and good. But when it’s time to get promoted, what are you going to say “I pulled well defined Jira tickets off the board”? When you get ready to interview for your n+1 job, and you spent months grinding leetCode and practicing reversing a btree on the white board, get to the behavioral interview and I ask “what accomplishment are you most proud of?”, what are you going to say “I worked with my team and we together closed 20 story points a week”? I have given the thumbs down to a lot of candidates this year alone who couldn’t discuss something that they took ownership of or where they stood out.

kmarc 10mo ago

Damned is this industry, when even _you_ say you have to show that "remoteness works". I also measure meetings (counts, lengths, and mostly meeting minutes/outine jotted down by myself) and keep track of other metrics, exactly for this reason. However, I also don't happen to have written best selling books and stuff, so I really must do this, and you really shouldn't have to :-)

pm90 10mo ago
I have more respect for him because he chose to do this. It’s probably clear that he doesn’t have to, at all. But he’s choosing not to rely on his (somewhat) tech celebrity status and deliver on measurable outcomes.
- ghaff 10mo ago
  Not that I've ever been especially religious about it but it's probably a good thing to keep track of activities, especially those that directly affect customers. It's pretty easy/low-effort and is useful to be able to pull out.

boringg 10mo ago

Do you have a particularly easy way to track or are you kind of doing the same thing as consultant and logging your dailies? Always drove me a bit crazy having to do that admin piece every day.

raw_anon_1111 10mo ago

As a senior employee. This is just the opposite of what I would expect. (I’m not the author of this) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46146451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46146451 As a senior employee first at a startup from 2018-2020 and then as a staff engineer at a consulting company for the last year (with a 4 year at BigTech detour between), no one really micromanages me. Even at the consulting company, when I am on a project, I just put 40 hours in Salesforce with the project I’m assigned to - with no details - or put “bench” - again with no details. Why would my company care? The customer is happy, the project is managed through Jira (where I as the lead create the tasks) and my company gets paid when the project is done. I am sure I ask for feedback after every project in our peer review system.

izacus 10mo ago
Note how the author doesn't work for tiny little companies like you.
- lokar 10mo ago
  As a principal at big tech I has essentially full autonomy to do what I thought was highest value with very little need to report anything.
  - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
    Exactly this. I’m still friends with my former manager at AWS who is now an L7 “very important person” over a service there and another former coworker who is a tech lead over another service. He’s an L6. I can guarantee you neither of them are being micromanaged and have mostly autonomy. I’m sure they have to deal with OP1 goals (? It’s been awhile I think that’s the term). Hell I was a lowly L5 consultant who they only entrusted to small projects and slices over larger projects (fair I only had 2 years of AWS experience at the time) and no one micromanaged me as long as I was doing my job. I flew out to customers sites by myself to lead work and my manager rarely knew what I was doing. I would go weeks without talking to him.
- 10mo ago

kappi 10mo ago

measuring number of meetings seems deflection of actual output!