20 ms·

The Art of Not Working at Work

414 points by jamessun 12y ago

nasalgoat 12y ago
Automation and massive amounts of available resources are primarily responsible for my idle time at work - once you build a reliable infrastructure, with automatic setup and failover configurations, running on machines that are basically 90% idle outside of peak hours, what exactly are you supposed to do?
- b_emery 12y ago
  This ideal situation won't last forever. Figure out what is next, and start training for it. (Otherwise you become one of the old admins clinging to your way of doing things, and slowly becoming obsolete).
  - jqm 12y ago
    Agreed 100%. Always expect that sooner or later there will be a housecleaning, and if keep current you will be prepared.
    - Roboprog 12y ago
      Make sure there's a code for that activity on your weekly TPS report!
  - nasalgoat 12y ago
    I'm here at Hacker News keeping current - it's part of what I do with my idle time at work. I generally use the fireman analogy when talking about idle time for admins. There's not always a fire.
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emsy 12y ago
There already were quite a few posts about this phenomenon on HN, most notably from David Graeber, author of "First Five Thousand Years of Debt". Even I, who worked as a programmer experienced this phenomenon, even though my then employee was desperately looking for programmers. Some of my colleagues even evaded work voluntarily. Management had failed us. Asking about 10 people who work at desks (not specifically offices, for example I talked to electrical engineers), all of them had experienced the phenomenon either first hand or second hand. Edit: The Graeber article was linked to in another comment :)
serve_yay 12y ago
Things like the incident discussed at the top interest me, because the reaction is always directed at the "lazy" person for not working hard enough and taking advantage, but never at the organization for apparently being incapable of knowing what the hell its employees are up to.
aaron695 12y ago
Too many 'Just So' stories. The fact no one missed a dead person for two days is meaningless. In a good business, with good employees, you should be able to do 2 days work straight uninterrupted.
hammock 12y ago
Further reading: http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/09/17/we-have-them-surrounded-in-their-tanks/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/09/17/we-have-them-surrounded... http://nydwracu.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/transcript-balaji-srinivasan-on-silicon-valleys-ultimate-exit/ http://nydwracu.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/transcript-balaji-s...
- tomaskafka 12y ago
  +1 for linking Venkat's blog! I add this epic series: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ Edit: Lol, Gervais Principle is linked two more times down the page. Obviously relevant :))
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GuiA 12y ago
> Everywhere we look, technology is replacing human labor. In OECD countries, productivity has more than doubled since the '70s. Yet there has been no perceptible movement to reduce workers' hours in relation to this increased productivity; instead, the virtues of "creating jobs" are trumpeted by both Democrats and Republicans. When the first laws for 40 hour workweeks (or 35 hours, for countries like France) were passed, almost half a century ago, they were seen as stepping stones to shorter workweeks- the goal was to go down to 30, then 20, and maybe at some point in the year 2020 we'd only work one day a week. Well, turns out that's not how it turned out.
- yodsanklai 12y ago
  France switched from 39 hours to 35 hours per week about 15 years ago. This is still very controversial and right-wings parties would like to somehow revert the change.
  - GuiA 12y ago
    Sure, and right wing parties also want to tear down the banlieues and send all the "immigrants" "back home". At this point "les 35 heures" is so engrained in French society that going back is practically impossible.
    - deleted 12y ago
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    - jmnicolas 12y ago
      Right wing doesn't mean far right. What you describe is the (non official) program of the far right "Front National" not the normal right wing "UMP".
      - barnaby 12y ago
        Have you seen the election results in France recently? FN might as well be called the "normal right" in France at this point.
comrh 12y ago
I remember being told the internet revolution would allow people to work shorter hours without being tied to a desk. Maybe this is just a symptom of the old 9-5 model breaking in a world where I can finish a lot of work during my commute. Also the idea that we should be "true believers" in a job and not just there for a paycheck is so bizarre and unrealistic. Everyone hopes for one of those jobs where you really enjoy what you're doing but no one concludes the job for them is roadkill collector.
- transitorykris 12y ago
  When you've increased your efficiency you've only freed up time to create additional value. If you don't do it, your competitors will.
  - anon4 12y ago
    Except when everyone just sort of naturally agrees that we're at good-enough value already and doesn't bother, which is what's happening at a lot of these places. You don't push and your competitors don't push because all the people who are at the low level of actually doing things rather than sitting in meetings don't feel like bothering with it. Surprisingly (or not) it actually works out well with the only bad part being some fat cats in suits think they're paying money for actual work. Not that it matters if they "waste" their money, it will trickle back up to them pretty soon.
  - comrh 12y ago
    Yeah but I'm not going to create additional value for my company because it doesn't increase the reward at all so we're left with what the article describes, nothing to do.
IvyMike 12y ago
It's a problem that's hard to solve: since the amount of work ebbs and flows, how do you keep your staff busy for 40 hours a week? Some companies drastically overcommit on a permanent basis, so that 40 hours is the minimum anyone's ever scheduled for, and when there's a lot of work, everyone's on massive overtime. These jobs can suck--these are the ones where you can end up working 100+ hour weeks on occasion, and 80+ hour weeks for months on end. Ironically, I find these are also the places where people are most likely to "look busy" in an attempt to protect themselves. Some companies overcommit on a short-term basis, but make an attempt to average 40 hours in the long term. A lot better, and way less likely to burn people out, but still periods of suckiness. But there's a lot less need to look busy--and there will be periods of undertime, where people are just kind of dicking around. The best job I ever had, the manager attempted to commit to 40 hours of work during peak times. But during down times, instead of letting us idle, he had us actively work on infrastructure and self-improvement. Build better tools, evaluate new tools, benchmark things, upgrade things, document things, etc. He was good at making this productive, and not "busy-work" (which is the pitfall). As time went on, these investments paid off, and we got faster and better and our 40 hours of work went a long way. And as far as I can tell, nobody ever attempted to "look busy", as the actual job was enjoyable. Sadly, this could not last, and when the dotcom crash took us down the group was dissolved. :(
- ma2rten 12y ago
  I don't understand this post. Either you work for a consultency-type company that develops products for customers, but those don't really have infrastructure, right? OR you work for a company that has it's own product, in that case, you can always work on more features or there are more bugs to fix.
  - IvyMike 12y ago
    Think of "work on infrastructure" as "work on developer-centric features" and maybe you'll be happier? Also: "Always work on more features" can be a pitfall, and it's why Zawinski's law of software envelopment exists. Any feature you add can end up costing in future maintenance and difficulty in making future changes. Another thing we did during the "work on infrastructure" times was delete unused features. I was working on a 12 year old code base so there were actually a lot of those.
dismal2 12y ago
I'm reading this at work to not work.
- iaw 12y ago
  Same here, I work quicker than most. I can get a day done in 3 hours and my employer wont incentivize me to work consistently at this pace (more capacity = more work). So I just limit capacity.
- WelcomeScreen 12y ago
  That's really not something to brag about. I've worked at two software companies in the Bay Area with people like you. At both companies, I put in well beyond a solid eight hours each day picking up the work that people like you are not doing. There are honest, hard working people you are screwing over.
  - iaw 12y ago
    I wouldn't be so sure, depending on his role in the operational scope he could be underutilized. I frequently find myself with too little to do because I can work quicker so I'm typically waiting for the people that need 8 hours+ a day to complete their responsibilities before I can make progress. In my case, it's the people that think they're impressive working 8 hour+ days that need to learn to be more efficient that are causing issues.
    - lordbusiness 12y ago
      Exactly. Some people work better when they're 'up against it' under a crushing deadline, or just don't take as long as the average person. Personally, I am able to achieve a lot more when I am under the gun, and often find myself procrastinating until the last minute and then pull a rabbit out of a hat. This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it misunderstood. Some people work like marathon runners, some people work like cheetahs. The cheetah cannot be expected to be at full capacity 100% of the time. If two people both produce the same output, but one of them needs 40 hours and the other can do the same work in 2, who is the 'inefficient' person here? Let's evaluate the product, not the workflow.
api 12y ago
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-jobs.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-...
enobrev 12y ago
This article very clearly describes the anxiety I felt as I melded into the workforce a few lifetimes ago. Not to say that I could have possibly articulated why I felt such a need to get away from the employers of the day, but one can reminisce... Back then I was doing on-site tech support for a market-data software company serving the major investment banks of the time (a major partner and competitor to Knight Ridder, DTN, and Reuters for those who might have any idea). My days we very full, supporting DOS-based servers and workstations; In the evenings I spent my hours working on an intranet, which, as I understand, still remains in what's left of the expired once-incredibly-successful company. Soon after, I was laid off as the company downsized to almost nothing. As I took on a couple jobs from former customer contacts, I found it far too easy to waste time on the clock. I hated it. I hated the water cooler. I hated the extended lunches. Getting paid relatively well for little output was nice in a way, as I had plenty of friends my own age back home who would kill for such a position and wage. But it wasn't for me. I didn't care as much about wasting company resources (though I did care), but I felt it was a complete waste of my own time. Within a year of being laid off, I went full-time freelance, and within three years I was able to pick my clients. Most of the time, my contacts at my clients' companies were as incredibly intelligent as they were underutilized. At odd hours, we'd get into the nitty gritty of what was really needed for the client to succeed and I was able to propose interesting solutions, not only to offer what was asked, but what would take them further. And my attempts to give credit to said employees usually (not always) seemed to fall upon deaf ears. As a freelance developer, I was able to continue to pick clients, work on interesting things, meet incredibly interesting people, get the job done, all from my own desk on my own time, and when it was done - move on. Meanwhile, I saw friends and contacts fall into stagnation as they remained underutilized. Some happy, with the stability to support their families and lifestyles. Many, less so. I'm obviously very lucky as a programmer - someone who can jump into almost any industry, learn as much as possible about their needs, remain busy for as long as the project exists, and then move on. I think that's what drives my interest in software more than anything. Provided I can ask the right questions to the right people, there is never a shortage of interesting things to figure out for a good wage. I don't pity those who don't currently have such an option, as that would undermine the respect I have for them. But I do firmly believe the closer we get to enabling such a world for those of us who are not so well versed in translating business requirements to tech solutions would be a societal benefit. I certainly don't think everyone should be a business entity unto themselves. But the flattening of the company structure - beyond the walls of the institutions that hold said structures dear - has a good deal of potential for the creative possibilities of the most competent workers therein.
Kaihuang724 12y ago
I see this a lot in the industry I work in, which is design. As a web designer, we're either on a tight, impossible deadline or we have nothing to do. Although it's common, I feel this is a problem that has to be taken into account and corrected at the project management level. I can only speak for the company I work for, but our project managers typically have a hard time planning design as they don't fully understand the process, which then makes it impossible for the designers to allocate time correctly. For anyone currently facing this situation, I would highly suggest using your free time to work on personal skills (if possible, as dictated by your company's leniency). Whenever I have free time, I try to learn development practices, new languages, new techniques, etc. as much as possible so I don't rot with boredom. Or I come here and read article after article until all the links are grey.
msoad 12y ago
I wanted to open an Ask HN for this but now that this article is here, let me ask it here. I'm really frustrated with my current situation. I'm extremely passionate about my work. Whatever I do, I want to make it perfect by spending a good amount of time on it. In every tram I go, I'm the one that does most of the work and move things forward. But after a while I lose steam. I see others are abusing the situation and leaving all the work for me. For example, right now my team is doing open source work and anyone can see your commits. I commit at least 20 times a day while my co-workers commit 2 times per week average(actual numbers). Maybe they are on their regular routine but I'm too hyper active and think they are slacking but at the end I leave. I changed jobs 5 times in 4 years and ever time I got a better job because I achieved so much in a short period of time in previous position. I'm not ready for starting my own company and want to work for others to learn enough for it. But with this situation I'm really confused what to do? I know not 5 companies doing it wrong. It's probably like this everywhere. I enjoy working hard and making shit happen but I don't want others abuse it. How can I solve this conflict?
- tormeh 12y ago
  I would probably recommend one of the big software consulting houses. Capgemini, Accenture etc.
  - msoad 12y ago
    Thanks! How working for consulting companies is better?
    - rmsaksida 12y ago
      I think this advice is supposed to be sarcastic. Some consulting firms are known for having high stress, high pressure environments with high turnover.
      - tormeh 12y ago
        Well, not sarcastic, really. It's just that if you want to work a lot, then those companies will let you. You'll get paid correspondingly.
rcthompson 12y ago
Reminds me of a Dilbert comic from over a decade ago. Dilbert was working from home, and the joke was him saying something like "Do I owe my employer the full 8 hours of work or just the 2 hours of productivity I would have if I went in to the office?"
- mynameishere 12y ago
  Really should link to it: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-02-06/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-02-06/ (God, I'm ashamed it took me 10 seconds to find that.) He eventually goes crazy. Anyway, I've experienced the same in a declining company, in which people were fired or quit, and I'd get their full responsibilities, and it literally added 15 minutes of work per week to my schedule.
  - rcthompson 12y ago
    I would have linked to it, but I only read it in a dead-tree book at my parents' friends house a decade ago, so I had no idea where I would find it in the archives (didn't know when it was originally written). Apparently the Dilbert website has full test search for all the comics now, which would have made it a lot easier. So, thanks for the link!
- melloclello 12y ago
  Mitchell and Webb also did a bit on working from home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk [NSFW: Unsavoury topics]
Shivetya 12y ago
As a system admin and developer second I tend to code to make my primary job even less of a burden. My direct boss jokes he could care less how busy I am not as long as I am there when it hits the fan. Yet it can be a brain drain when you run out of things to do, being a social butterfly was a skill I had to learn. In the course of that activity I did find work through helping others as we did work on the same platform. I could code and work up wonders in SQL simply because I had the idle time to learn what I wanted to do. Still it would be nice to not be in a box. Then again I am not sure what I would do with not so integrated and reliable systems that I do watch over.
enraged_camel 12y ago
At my previous employer I was part of the most productive department in the entire company. A new CIO was hired and the crazy policies he put in place drove half of my team, including myself, to quit. During my exit interview I got a chance to have a candid chat with him. Here's a snippet: CIO: So why are you leaving? Me: Because we are -- were -- the most productive team by far and you are doing your best to run it into the ground. CIO: The most productive team? Please. The IT department ran reports that showed your team spends the most time surfing the Internet. Me: Obviously. That's an indication of the nature of our work: we spend three to four hours everyday in deep concentration and do lighter work the rest of the time, and that inevitably involves Internet usage. Look at the results we-- CIO: Wait, hold on... so what you're saying is that your team is at approximately %40 productivity?!?! Me: No, we're at over 90% productivity because no one can "produce" our output for eight hours straight five days a week unless they are on Adderall! --- Unfortunately I couldn't get it through his head that it's just not realistic to expect people to be productive every minute of every day. His mentality was straight up, "if you're clocked in you should be working," which may be realistic for assembly line workers, but what is commonly called "knowledge work" happens in spurts (when people are in the "zone") and that's OK.
- zobzu 12y ago
  This dude consequently never worked as a "worker" obviously. Thus your decision to quit is perfectly sound.
Spooky23 12y ago
You need to decide what you want to do and where you want to go. If you work for the government, your masters are ultimately politicians and bureaucrats. If your goal is to move to the top of the pyramid, you need to play there game. That means kissing babies and being visible. Other times, there is a ceiling you can't go through. If you're an IT guy working at an engineering firm, you'll never be a PE, so you're pigeonholed. If you're an accountant, you'll never be the CEO of Microsoft. If you're not a daylaborer, you're not working every hot of the day.
overgard 12y ago
I think in large part, automation/technology has made most work unimportant. I mean, remember how people used to have secretaries? Now that's a luxury for only the elite. And it makes sense, when you have email and voicemail and so on, you don't really need a secretary. Nice to have, sure, but that's a job that technology has pretty much marginalized. I wish I had a reference, but I remember reading a story about a steel mill that has like 1/5th the workforce it did 30 years ago, but is producing the same volume. That's one example, but I really don't think it's isolated. Everything is getting more efficient. There's this notion that more efficiency always creates more opportunity, but I find that idea suspect. Sometimes, sure, but at a certain point, sometimes things are just good enough. Even knowledge work is susceptible. On one hand, it's great that things like programming are becoming a lot easier, but on the other hand, if your programmers are 10x more productive in Ruby than they are in C... well you probably don't need as many programmers. Remember the great recession? I think one of the interesting things that happened there is that a lot of jobs got eliminated out of necessity... and then they never really came back. The popular opinion is to blame a weak economy and I'm sure that's a factor, but I think a lot of it was, companies got rid of those people and then realized they didn't really need them. The problem is, society hasn't caught up. So everyone feels the need to prove they're doing /something/, and firing someone is an awful experience, so I think most people are employed because they have to be employed, and because their employers don't really want to have to cut them loose unless they have to. Even startups aren't really immune to this. Sure they have to be lean, but how many startup exist because the founders think they need to be doing, well, something.
- sswaner 12y ago
  Nucor Steel. High tech and highly engaged employees driven by compensation heavily based on meeting production goals keeps employees highly motivated to stay engaged. I worked there as a temp in college when they would shut down the mill for 2 weeks for maintenance. On one of these, a billet melted in a reheat furnace, throwing off the schedule and threatening the ability to get back to rolling steel. As soon as the temperature in the furnace dropped below 150F they wrapped us up in heavy clothing, made wooden soles for our boots so the rubber wouldn't melt and sent us in with jackhammers to overhaul the furnace. They were very determined on meeting goals. The employees got crazy good bonuses that at times exceeded their base salaries, all dependent on shipping steel. http://www.managerwise.com/article.phtml?id=172 http://www.managerwise.com/article.phtml?id=172
nperez 12y ago
3 hours of personal time in the office might be a bit much, but the figure of 60% of purchases being made during work hours doesn't surprise me and I don't think it's a big deal. There is only so much output that can come from a person in a day. When I work for 3 or 4 hours straight, I can physically feel the brain-drain and need a break. A few minutes of personal time taking a walk outside or ordering stuff I need at home is all it takes to get back in my zone. I actually once fainted publicly after working too many hours straight without taking the slightest hint of a break. There's a balance that you need to strike. Take care of yourself. Get stuff done. Don't work 9 hours straight without taking a few breathers to stay on your game.
- cauterized 12y ago
  They also dated that statistic to ~15 years ago, when most people had internet access only at work (or broadband only at work).
StavrosK 12y ago
> If you add any actual value to your company today, your career is probably not moving in the right direction. Real work is for people at the bottom who plan to stay there. Does anyone know what he means by this? I'm afraid it hits too close to home for me.
- bashinator 12y ago
  Probably related to the Gervais Principle. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...
- xacto75 12y ago
  In most corporations (at those I've been involved with), the people who actually get the work done very rarely advance. Your career is not the work you do. It's how you're perceived socially within a company structure. This essay is actually very good: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ My personal experience is that those who are highly skilled and add value become an immediate threat to those who are just "punching a clock". It's important to note that those people may be at any level of an organization.
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    Damn, thanks for that :/ That's the situation I am currently in, looks like I'm going to have to stop actually working and playing the politics game instead. Or just get another job that's not as soul-crushing.
- mactitan 12y ago
  This might also apply to maintainers of legacy systems (especially ones that are in constant state of reengineering)
calinet6 12y ago
The problem with work is a lack of purpose, and a lack of knowledge about how to build it. Every person wants to feel that the work that they do is meaningful. Find me a person who says they truly desire for their work—for the majority of their contributions in life—to have no purpose. We all desire it. So the problem, then, is: how do we create a purposeful workplace? Most workplaces operate under a complex inhuman chaos that easily leads to malaise and disengagement. The problems are cultural, structural, and endemic: infighting, passive aggressive behavior, individuality, game playing, ladder climbing, loss of motivation, complacency, self-interest, and more. These are a consequence of an organization which fails to think systematically, fails to understand human psychology, fails to base their work methods on real knowledge, and fails to understand the statistics behind all components human or otherwise. In essence, organizations that fail to achieve systemic quality through these means are the ones which fail to achieve purpose. Aim to improve the system, and the end result and the structure under which it's produced improves as a side effect. It is pure and almost zen-like in its simplicity, but instead, lacking the necessary knowledge and the means to implement it, most corporate environments devolve into a haystack of individual-focused complexity, which leads to the dark center of corporate culture which we all dread: the one which robs our work of purpose. Improve the system, understand how every part of it works, and improve everything. Begin at Deming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming
- rdtsc 12y ago
  Things that can kill the workplace environment (some I've seen, others I've heard about during the years from acquintances): * Performance metrics that are too exact, defined or constrained. Where everyone turns to gaming them. Your peers' input becomes the crucial factor in your raise? "Ok, start rubbing everyone's back. Don't challange stupid decisions to avoid not being a "team player". Start seeing people let bugs slide so they can "save the day". Other stupid thing is "lines of code written and/or bugs squashed" -- Start seeing large files stretched out with useless drivel. Or stupid little bugs created and squashed to boost stats. * Management failure. Micro-managing. Breathing down people's necks. * Management failure. Too macro-managing. Disappear for days without letting others know. Assign projects then never check up on them later. * Management failure. Encourage in-fighting by assigning conflicting projects to people (tell Steve to make it blue, and then tell Joe to make the button green). * Management failure. Strategic decisions, product features are made and discussed in secret then ordered are sent from above to the workers. Workers don't know what the end goal is, just that they need to build this GUI or this Web page that does this one thing.
ams6110 12y ago
This is VERY common in university and municipal jobs. Many people at those insitutions are supurfluous and literally do nothing useful, or they may have one or two responsibilites carefully assigned to justify their position but in reality it's nothing someone else doesn't have plenty of time to handle. They get away with it because there's no pressure to show a profit, or penalty for a loss, at the end of the day. They have their budgets, and they spend that money. Ultimately these jobs are controlled by politicans, who hate to fire anybody because a) that might make them unpopular and b) political power in those organization correlates highly to the number of people who work under you.
- shitlord 12y ago
  I used to work for a beltway bandit and I experienced the same stuff described in the article. If you want an easy, comfortable job, that sort of work is perfect. If you want to do impactful work, it's the worst place you could be. Yet, that is exactly what you are promised: the opportunity to do purportedly important work, when all evidence points to the contrary. I just wish we could be honest with each other about this sort of stuff.
0x5f3759df-i 12y ago
This is what automation will create if we continue the logic that everyone has to work and if you don't have a job it's because you're a lazy freeloader. If we keep this mentality of a full time job for every person we are in for a rude awakening in the next couple decades. Automation is going to replace large segments of the economy and they will do that work better than a human ever did. The idea that everyone needs a job to be able to survive is an idea we need to let go of if we want to continue to progress.
- zobzu 12y ago
  well thats like the industrial revolution but at a different layer. i think another real difference is that we have way more people on the planet now (way too many, all scientific evidence points that out, too) thus this will be worse than the industrial revolution. Added to that, computers can automate a lot of "thinking jobs" as well, in fact. At some point we've to realize that: - you cant keep pooping babies because you feel like you're more important than the planet - you cant have a 8h work day for everyone, and you also can't enslave some people to these and have the other as the manipulative ultra powerful individuals Unfortunately that's exactly the state of the world today. If ever we solve this, we might even solve more important problems like energy, life, and what not - much more quickly than ever before. (and I therefore vote to be governed by skynet any day of the week)
  - jjoonathan 12y ago
    > way too many, all scientific evidence points that out, too The hallmark of scientific evidence is citation. You don't provide any. > you cant keep pooping babies Developed countries typically have birth rates lower than the "sustaining" birth rate. > you also can't enslave some people to these and have the other as the manipulative ultra powerful individuals This is the elephant in the room. Labor vs capital is stacked as it is, and automation will make it worse. We have to try to figure out a way to deal with it before things get violent (and they will get violent if we don't).
BorisMelnik 12y ago
When I used to work at jobs like this, where I had not a lot of responsibility part of what made it OK was "the art of looking busy." This could be anything from" reading work emails, printing and highlighting sentences, making lists of people, places and things, taking notes of activities. The list could go on and on.
BashiBazouk 12y ago
I had a job like this. My boss/owner of the business abused a provision in the California unemployment system designed for seasonal lulls in labor pools. When ever I was out of work to do, I was sent home and those hours were paid for by the state at the usual unemployment rate. I was doing high level graphic production and design to which I am quite skilled. At crunch time I can get through mountains of work quickly. Then at normal work flows I could quickly run out of work if I gave it my all. Then there was days of work trickling in... Annoyed me to no end. Here I am in the best paying job I'd had so far in my career and the only time in my life I've been on unemployment all at the same time. I was making enough at full hours to pay bills and have a decent lifestyle but boy did that unemployment rate cut in to that. I became a master of looking really busy doing absolutely nothing. Or working a quick half hour job in to an hour and a half. Of course it helped the other hat I wore at the job was being the main IT guy...
somberi 12y ago
A related (somewhat humorous) article from The Economist: Quoting the article: "The first principle of skiving (or shirking, as Americans call it) is always to appear hard at work....The second principle is that information technology is both the slacker’s best friend and his deadliest enemy. ...The third principle is that you should always try to get a job where there is no clear relation between input and output. The public sector is obviously a skiver’s paradise. In 2004 it took two days for anyone to notice that a Finnish tax inspector had died at his desk. " Full Article: http://goo.gl/HftcFx http://goo.gl/HftcFx
- psykovsky 12y ago
  Why the tracking link? Yes, it's a serious question.
  - forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
    I wondered the same thing. Used unshort.me for this. http://www.economist.com/news/business/21627649-how-thrive-work-minimum-effort-guide-skiving http://www.economist.com/news/business/21627649-how-thrive-w...
- tkorri 12y ago
  Oh I remember the case. The tax inspector was working alone late friday evening and he was found on monday morning. In this case I wouldn't blame the other employees for slacking...
netcan 12y ago
Ronald Coase is one of the most famous economists of the the previous generation. His most influential work is 'The Nature of the Firm' which starts fro a very interesting premise. Why do Firms exist? If bargaining, prices & markets are such an awesome and efficient thing, why don't the different employees in a firm just form markets, ecosystems where they buy and sell good and services and make ipods or packaging materials. Why do firms get so big? Why are firms run like market-less totalitarian dictatorships internally? If 10 year plans created by bureaucrats about how much lubricates, steel & cutlery should be produced fail so terribly relative to a prices/markets based economy, why are big plans dictated by executives and filtering down layers of management any better? His answer was transaction costs. Markets have transactions costs. Every transaction needs to be negotiated, sold, etc. That's a cost. To get efficient transactions really need to be repeated. The market needs to be big enough and transparent enough. The totalitarian nature of the firm has costs too. But, as long as these are less than transaction costs, it's preferable. Anyway, back to the slacking… I think a lot of the pathologies of our life at work are a result of this sort of totalitarianism. They are the inefficiencies. People are estranged from their work because they are estranged from it. There's a strong social pressure to express (or even feel) deeply connected to your work. It's an explicit demand from employers. The demand isn't as far fetched as wise guy cynics think because there's an inherent human tendency to vend meaning in work and in groups of people. We're wired that way Still, we're in this system where the motivation to work is unnatural (money, social pressures, your boss) to us. The feedback from our work is disconnected. For every Leonardo there have been a million oil painting sweatshop monkeys. A million poor shmucks trained to implement agile development in some dark dingy bank tech consultancy. Our personality at work is different. A meek, boring shell. Non work is one pathology among many. But, if you like positivity, it also means that our world is full of unutilized people.
tomaskafka 12y ago
Hypothesis: Purposefulness is limited by upstream = it can only decrease as you go deeper in a hierarchy. A.k.a. you can't build a (non-faked) purposeful company in a bullshit field. Think for example a would-love-to-feel-purposeful software development company supplying to some redundant government agency or corporate branch. In such a purpose-less field, you can only create a fake sense of purpose, and that only works as long as you find short-sighted people that don't realize that what they are living for is fake. Lot of 'creative' ad agencies do that, wasting best years of great 20-30 year olds to create award-winning animated microsites for cereals. What happens next is that these guys & girls drink away their unrealized frustration on countless parties (the work-hard-party-hard falacy), before realizing that things won't get better, and finally trying to find a purposeful place. Also, Zappos. Problem: The more you understand what's going on, the harder is to find a place that you would find purposeful. You become more and more unemployable by a majority of companies and are left with a choice of devoting your life to non-profit stuff (the important/non-urgent quadrant) while scraping by, or compromising your beliefs in some job-for-cash. Or trying to be that one lucky guy who built a lifestyle business that doesn't lie in bullshitting others.
x0rg 12y ago
This never happened to me, but I know people who had to quit their job because they were too bored. In reality, it's often the case that there are many people doing too much 9+ ours a day and people totally wasting their time. The sweet spot IMO is 8 hours per day the most productive you can be (you'll never get 8 hours of productivity).
yason 12y ago
Sometimes, does it matter at all? Once all important things get done eventually and relatively in time and the company earns enough money to chug along, it's just cost of doing business. The idle hours couldn't sometimes be cut away without hampering the productivity during active hours either. In public sector the situation is trickier. There are no objective indicators of how productive the office is. Unnecessary hours can easily pile up. There needs to be something that forces prioritization and tries to improve effectiveness. I'd say a fixed tax percentage might work: if the government can fund more of itself by raising taxes then it must work to prioritize its activity to only do the necessary work and to support the companies in that country to generate more profits.
Nursie 12y ago
"One day, in the middle of a meeting on motivation, I dared to say that the only reason I came to work was to put food on the table. There were 15 seconds of absolute silence, and everyone seemed uncomfortable. Even though the French word for work, ‘travail,’ etymologically derives from an instrument of torture, it’s imperative to let it be known, no matter the circumstance, that you are working because you are interested in your work" I would be coding and making software anyway, most likely. I often play with it in spare time anyway. But if you weren't going to pay me, I sure as hell wouldn't be doing it for you. And I'd be a liar if I said otherwise. Even if what you have me doing the exact same thing I'd be doing at home for nothing, sure as hell the only reason I come to work is because you pay me. I don't see why we can't be honest about this. This is also one of the reasons I'm a contractor/freelancer these days. So I don't have to pretend to care about your business, or pretend to be committed body and soul to the project. That's beyond the scope of my contract.
wglb 12y ago
This is an interesting article in light of patio11's about doing business in Japan: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ reply

414 points by jamessun 12y ago

Automation and massive amounts of available resources are primarily responsible for my idle time at work - once you build a reliable infrastructure, with automatic setup and failover configurations, running on machines that are basically 90% idle outside of peak hours, what exactly are you supposed to do?

b_emery 12y ago
This ideal situation won't last forever. Figure out what is next, and start training for it. (Otherwise you become one of the old admins clinging to your way of doing things, and slowly becoming obsolete).
- jqm 12y ago
  Agreed 100%. Always expect that sooner or later there will be a housecleaning, and if keep current you will be prepared.
  - Roboprog 12y ago
    Make sure there's a code for that activity on your weekly TPS report!
- nasalgoat 12y ago
  I'm here at Hacker News keeping current - it's part of what I do with my idle time at work. I generally use the fireman analogy when talking about idle time for admins. There's not always a fire.

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emsy 12y ago

There already were quite a few posts about this phenomenon on HN, most notably from David Graeber, author of "First Five Thousand Years of Debt". Even I, who worked as a programmer experienced this phenomenon, even though my then employee was desperately looking for programmers. Some of my colleagues even evaded work voluntarily. Management had failed us. Asking about 10 people who work at desks (not specifically offices, for example I talked to electrical engineers), all of them had experienced the phenomenon either first hand or second hand. Edit: The Graeber article was linked to in another comment :)

serve_yay 12y ago

Things like the incident discussed at the top interest me, because the reaction is always directed at the "lazy" person for not working hard enough and taking advantage, but never at the organization for apparently being incapable of knowing what the hell its employees are up to.

aaron695 12y ago

Too many 'Just So' stories. The fact no one missed a dead person for two days is meaningless. In a good business, with good employees, you should be able to do 2 days work straight uninterrupted.

hammock 12y ago

Further reading: http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/09/17/we-have-them-surrounded-in-their-tanks/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/09/17/we-have-them-surrounded... http://nydwracu.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/transcript-balaji-srinivasan-on-silicon-valleys-ultimate-exit/ http://nydwracu.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/transcript-balaji-s...

tomaskafka 12y ago
+1 for linking Venkat's blog! I add this epic series: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ Edit: Lol, Gervais Principle is linked two more times down the page. Obviously relevant :))

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GuiA 12y ago

> Everywhere we look, technology is replacing human labor. In OECD countries, productivity has more than doubled since the '70s. Yet there has been no perceptible movement to reduce workers' hours in relation to this increased productivity; instead, the virtues of "creating jobs" are trumpeted by both Democrats and Republicans. When the first laws for 40 hour workweeks (or 35 hours, for countries like France) were passed, almost half a century ago, they were seen as stepping stones to shorter workweeks- the goal was to go down to 30, then 20, and maybe at some point in the year 2020 we'd only work one day a week. Well, turns out that's not how it turned out.

yodsanklai 12y ago
France switched from 39 hours to 35 hours per week about 15 years ago. This is still very controversial and right-wings parties would like to somehow revert the change.
- GuiA 12y ago
  Sure, and right wing parties also want to tear down the banlieues and send all the "immigrants" "back home". At this point "les 35 heures" is so engrained in French society that going back is practically impossible.
  - deleted 12y ago
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  - jmnicolas 12y ago
    Right wing doesn't mean far right. What you describe is the (non official) program of the far right "Front National" not the normal right wing "UMP".
    - barnaby 12y ago
      Have you seen the election results in France recently? FN might as well be called the "normal right" in France at this point.

comrh 12y ago

I remember being told the internet revolution would allow people to work shorter hours without being tied to a desk. Maybe this is just a symptom of the old 9-5 model breaking in a world where I can finish a lot of work during my commute. Also the idea that we should be "true believers" in a job and not just there for a paycheck is so bizarre and unrealistic. Everyone hopes for one of those jobs where you really enjoy what you're doing but no one concludes the job for them is roadkill collector.

transitorykris 12y ago
When you've increased your efficiency you've only freed up time to create additional value. If you don't do it, your competitors will.
- anon4 12y ago
  Except when everyone just sort of naturally agrees that we're at good-enough value already and doesn't bother, which is what's happening at a lot of these places. You don't push and your competitors don't push because all the people who are at the low level of actually doing things rather than sitting in meetings don't feel like bothering with it. Surprisingly (or not) it actually works out well with the only bad part being some fat cats in suits think they're paying money for actual work. Not that it matters if they "waste" their money, it will trickle back up to them pretty soon.
- comrh 12y ago
  Yeah but I'm not going to create additional value for my company because it doesn't increase the reward at all so we're left with what the article describes, nothing to do.

IvyMike 12y ago

It's a problem that's hard to solve: since the amount of work ebbs and flows, how do you keep your staff busy for 40 hours a week? Some companies drastically overcommit on a permanent basis, so that 40 hours is the minimum anyone's ever scheduled for, and when there's a lot of work, everyone's on massive overtime. These jobs can suck--these are the ones where you can end up working 100+ hour weeks on occasion, and 80+ hour weeks for months on end. Ironically, I find these are also the places where people are most likely to "look busy" in an attempt to protect themselves. Some companies overcommit on a short-term basis, but make an attempt to average 40 hours in the long term. A lot better, and way less likely to burn people out, but still periods of suckiness. But there's a lot less need to look busy--and there will be periods of undertime, where people are just kind of dicking around. The best job I ever had, the manager attempted to commit to 40 hours of work during peak times. But during down times, instead of letting us idle, he had us actively work on infrastructure and self-improvement. Build better tools, evaluate new tools, benchmark things, upgrade things, document things, etc. He was good at making this productive, and not "busy-work" (which is the pitfall). As time went on, these investments paid off, and we got faster and better and our 40 hours of work went a long way. And as far as I can tell, nobody ever attempted to "look busy", as the actual job was enjoyable. Sadly, this could not last, and when the dotcom crash took us down the group was dissolved. :(

ma2rten 12y ago
I don't understand this post. Either you work for a consultency-type company that develops products for customers, but those don't really have infrastructure, right? OR you work for a company that has it's own product, in that case, you can always work on more features or there are more bugs to fix.
- IvyMike 12y ago
  Think of "work on infrastructure" as "work on developer-centric features" and maybe you'll be happier? Also: "Always work on more features" can be a pitfall, and it's why Zawinski's law of software envelopment exists. Any feature you add can end up costing in future maintenance and difficulty in making future changes. Another thing we did during the "work on infrastructure" times was delete unused features. I was working on a 12 year old code base so there were actually a lot of those.

dismal2 12y ago

I'm reading this at work to not work.

iaw 12y ago
Same here, I work quicker than most. I can get a day done in 3 hours and my employer wont incentivize me to work consistently at this pace (more capacity = more work). So I just limit capacity.
WelcomeScreen 12y ago
That's really not something to brag about. I've worked at two software companies in the Bay Area with people like you. At both companies, I put in well beyond a solid eight hours each day picking up the work that people like you are not doing. There are honest, hard working people you are screwing over.
- iaw 12y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure, depending on his role in the operational scope he could be underutilized. I frequently find myself with too little to do because I can work quicker so I'm typically waiting for the people that need 8 hours+ a day to complete their responsibilities before I can make progress. In my case, it's the people that think they're impressive working 8 hour+ days that need to learn to be more efficient that are causing issues.
  - lordbusiness 12y ago
    Exactly. Some people work better when they're 'up against it' under a crushing deadline, or just don't take as long as the average person. Personally, I am able to achieve a lot more when I am under the gun, and often find myself procrastinating until the last minute and then pull a rabbit out of a hat. This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it misunderstood. Some people work like marathon runners, some people work like cheetahs. The cheetah cannot be expected to be at full capacity 100% of the time. If two people both produce the same output, but one of them needs 40 hours and the other can do the same work in 2, who is the 'inefficient' person here? Let's evaluate the product, not the workflow.

api 12y ago

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-jobs.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-...

enobrev 12y ago

This article very clearly describes the anxiety I felt as I melded into the workforce a few lifetimes ago. Not to say that I could have possibly articulated why I felt such a need to get away from the employers of the day, but one can reminisce... Back then I was doing on-site tech support for a market-data software company serving the major investment banks of the time (a major partner and competitor to Knight Ridder, DTN, and Reuters for those who might have any idea). My days we very full, supporting DOS-based servers and workstations; In the evenings I spent my hours working on an intranet, which, as I understand, still remains in what's left of the expired once-incredibly-successful company. Soon after, I was laid off as the company downsized to almost nothing. As I took on a couple jobs from former customer contacts, I found it far too easy to waste time on the clock. I hated it. I hated the water cooler. I hated the extended lunches. Getting paid relatively well for little output was nice in a way, as I had plenty of friends my own age back home who would kill for such a position and wage. But it wasn't for me. I didn't care as much about wasting company resources (though I did care), but I felt it was a complete waste of my own time. Within a year of being laid off, I went full-time freelance, and within three years I was able to pick my clients. Most of the time, my contacts at my clients' companies were as incredibly intelligent as they were underutilized. At odd hours, we'd get into the nitty gritty of what was really needed for the client to succeed and I was able to propose interesting solutions, not only to offer what was asked, but what would take them further. And my attempts to give credit to said employees usually (not always) seemed to fall upon deaf ears. As a freelance developer, I was able to continue to pick clients, work on interesting things, meet incredibly interesting people, get the job done, all from my own desk on my own time, and when it was done - move on. Meanwhile, I saw friends and contacts fall into stagnation as they remained underutilized. Some happy, with the stability to support their families and lifestyles. Many, less so. I'm obviously very lucky as a programmer - someone who can jump into almost any industry, learn as much as possible about their needs, remain busy for as long as the project exists, and then move on. I think that's what drives my interest in software more than anything. Provided I can ask the right questions to the right people, there is never a shortage of interesting things to figure out for a good wage. I don't pity those who don't currently have such an option, as that would undermine the respect I have for them. But I do firmly believe the closer we get to enabling such a world for those of us who are not so well versed in translating business requirements to tech solutions would be a societal benefit. I certainly don't think everyone should be a business entity unto themselves. But the flattening of the company structure - beyond the walls of the institutions that hold said structures dear - has a good deal of potential for the creative possibilities of the most competent workers therein.

Kaihuang724 12y ago

I see this a lot in the industry I work in, which is design. As a web designer, we're either on a tight, impossible deadline or we have nothing to do. Although it's common, I feel this is a problem that has to be taken into account and corrected at the project management level. I can only speak for the company I work for, but our project managers typically have a hard time planning design as they don't fully understand the process, which then makes it impossible for the designers to allocate time correctly. For anyone currently facing this situation, I would highly suggest using your free time to work on personal skills (if possible, as dictated by your company's leniency). Whenever I have free time, I try to learn development practices, new languages, new techniques, etc. as much as possible so I don't rot with boredom. Or I come here and read article after article until all the links are grey.

msoad 12y ago

I wanted to open an Ask HN for this but now that this article is here, let me ask it here. I'm really frustrated with my current situation. I'm extremely passionate about my work. Whatever I do, I want to make it perfect by spending a good amount of time on it. In every tram I go, I'm the one that does most of the work and move things forward. But after a while I lose steam. I see others are abusing the situation and leaving all the work for me. For example, right now my team is doing open source work and anyone can see your commits. I commit at least 20 times a day while my co-workers commit 2 times per week average(actual numbers). Maybe they are on their regular routine but I'm too hyper active and think they are slacking but at the end I leave. I changed jobs 5 times in 4 years and ever time I got a better job because I achieved so much in a short period of time in previous position. I'm not ready for starting my own company and want to work for others to learn enough for it. But with this situation I'm really confused what to do? I know not 5 companies doing it wrong. It's probably like this everywhere. I enjoy working hard and making shit happen but I don't want others abuse it. How can I solve this conflict?

tormeh 12y ago
I would probably recommend one of the big software consulting houses. Capgemini, Accenture etc.
- msoad 12y ago
  Thanks! How working for consulting companies is better?
  - rmsaksida 12y ago
    I think this advice is supposed to be sarcastic. Some consulting firms are known for having high stress, high pressure environments with high turnover.
    - tormeh 12y ago
      Well, not sarcastic, really. It's just that if you want to work a lot, then those companies will let you. You'll get paid correspondingly.

rcthompson 12y ago

Reminds me of a Dilbert comic from over a decade ago. Dilbert was working from home, and the joke was him saying something like "Do I owe my employer the full 8 hours of work or just the 2 hours of productivity I would have if I went in to the office?"

mynameishere 12y ago
Really should link to it: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-02-06/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-02-06/ (God, I'm ashamed it took me 10 seconds to find that.) He eventually goes crazy. Anyway, I've experienced the same in a declining company, in which people were fired or quit, and I'd get their full responsibilities, and it literally added 15 minutes of work per week to my schedule.
- rcthompson 12y ago
  I would have linked to it, but I only read it in a dead-tree book at my parents' friends house a decade ago, so I had no idea where I would find it in the archives (didn't know when it was originally written). Apparently the Dilbert website has full test search for all the comics now, which would have made it a lot easier. So, thanks for the link!
melloclello 12y ago
Mitchell and Webb also did a bit on working from home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk [NSFW: Unsavoury topics]

Shivetya 12y ago

As a system admin and developer second I tend to code to make my primary job even less of a burden. My direct boss jokes he could care less how busy I am not as long as I am there when it hits the fan. Yet it can be a brain drain when you run out of things to do, being a social butterfly was a skill I had to learn. In the course of that activity I did find work through helping others as we did work on the same platform. I could code and work up wonders in SQL simply because I had the idle time to learn what I wanted to do. Still it would be nice to not be in a box. Then again I am not sure what I would do with not so integrated and reliable systems that I do watch over.

enraged_camel 12y ago

At my previous employer I was part of the most productive department in the entire company. A new CIO was hired and the crazy policies he put in place drove half of my team, including myself, to quit. During my exit interview I got a chance to have a candid chat with him. Here's a snippet: CIO: So why are you leaving? Me: Because we are -- were -- the most productive team by far and you are doing your best to run it into the ground. CIO: The most productive team? Please. The IT department ran reports that showed your team spends the most time surfing the Internet. Me: Obviously. That's an indication of the nature of our work: we spend three to four hours everyday in deep concentration and do lighter work the rest of the time, and that inevitably involves Internet usage. Look at the results we-- CIO: Wait, hold on... so what you're saying is that your team is at approximately %40 productivity?!?! Me: No, we're at over 90% productivity because no one can "produce" our output for eight hours straight five days a week unless they are on Adderall! --- Unfortunately I couldn't get it through his head that it's just not realistic to expect people to be productive every minute of every day. His mentality was straight up, "if you're clocked in you should be working," which may be realistic for assembly line workers, but what is commonly called "knowledge work" happens in spurts (when people are in the "zone") and that's OK.

zobzu 12y ago
This dude consequently never worked as a "worker" obviously. Thus your decision to quit is perfectly sound.

Spooky23 12y ago

You need to decide what you want to do and where you want to go. If you work for the government, your masters are ultimately politicians and bureaucrats. If your goal is to move to the top of the pyramid, you need to play there game. That means kissing babies and being visible. Other times, there is a ceiling you can't go through. If you're an IT guy working at an engineering firm, you'll never be a PE, so you're pigeonholed. If you're an accountant, you'll never be the CEO of Microsoft. If you're not a daylaborer, you're not working every hot of the day.

overgard 12y ago

I think in large part, automation/technology has made most work unimportant. I mean, remember how people used to have secretaries? Now that's a luxury for only the elite. And it makes sense, when you have email and voicemail and so on, you don't really need a secretary. Nice to have, sure, but that's a job that technology has pretty much marginalized. I wish I had a reference, but I remember reading a story about a steel mill that has like 1/5th the workforce it did 30 years ago, but is producing the same volume. That's one example, but I really don't think it's isolated. Everything is getting more efficient. There's this notion that more efficiency always creates more opportunity, but I find that idea suspect. Sometimes, sure, but at a certain point, sometimes things are just good enough. Even knowledge work is susceptible. On one hand, it's great that things like programming are becoming a lot easier, but on the other hand, if your programmers are 10x more productive in Ruby than they are in C... well you probably don't need as many programmers. Remember the great recession? I think one of the interesting things that happened there is that a lot of jobs got eliminated out of necessity... and then they never really came back. The popular opinion is to blame a weak economy and I'm sure that's a factor, but I think a lot of it was, companies got rid of those people and then realized they didn't really need them. The problem is, society hasn't caught up. So everyone feels the need to prove they're doing /something/, and firing someone is an awful experience, so I think most people are employed because they have to be employed, and because their employers don't really want to have to cut them loose unless they have to. Even startups aren't really immune to this. Sure they have to be lean, but how many startup exist because the founders think they need to be doing, well, something.

sswaner 12y ago
Nucor Steel. High tech and highly engaged employees driven by compensation heavily based on meeting production goals keeps employees highly motivated to stay engaged. I worked there as a temp in college when they would shut down the mill for 2 weeks for maintenance. On one of these, a billet melted in a reheat furnace, throwing off the schedule and threatening the ability to get back to rolling steel. As soon as the temperature in the furnace dropped below 150F they wrapped us up in heavy clothing, made wooden soles for our boots so the rubber wouldn't melt and sent us in with jackhammers to overhaul the furnace. They were very determined on meeting goals. The employees got crazy good bonuses that at times exceeded their base salaries, all dependent on shipping steel. http://www.managerwise.com/article.phtml?id=172 http://www.managerwise.com/article.phtml?id=172

nperez 12y ago

3 hours of personal time in the office might be a bit much, but the figure of 60% of purchases being made during work hours doesn't surprise me and I don't think it's a big deal. There is only so much output that can come from a person in a day. When I work for 3 or 4 hours straight, I can physically feel the brain-drain and need a break. A few minutes of personal time taking a walk outside or ordering stuff I need at home is all it takes to get back in my zone. I actually once fainted publicly after working too many hours straight without taking the slightest hint of a break. There's a balance that you need to strike. Take care of yourself. Get stuff done. Don't work 9 hours straight without taking a few breathers to stay on your game.

cauterized 12y ago
They also dated that statistic to ~15 years ago, when most people had internet access only at work (or broadband only at work).

StavrosK 12y ago

> If you add any actual value to your company today, your career is probably not moving in the right direction. Real work is for people at the bottom who plan to stay there. Does anyone know what he means by this? I'm afraid it hits too close to home for me.

bashinator 12y ago
Probably related to the Gervais Principle. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...
xacto75 12y ago
In most corporations (at those I've been involved with), the people who actually get the work done very rarely advance. Your career is not the work you do. It's how you're perceived socially within a company structure. This essay is actually very good: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ My personal experience is that those who are highly skilled and add value become an immediate threat to those who are just "punching a clock". It's important to note that those people may be at any level of an organization.
- StavrosK 12y ago
  Damn, thanks for that :/ That's the situation I am currently in, looks like I'm going to have to stop actually working and playing the politics game instead. Or just get another job that's not as soul-crushing.
mactitan 12y ago
This might also apply to maintainers of legacy systems (especially ones that are in constant state of reengineering)

calinet6 12y ago

The problem with work is a lack of purpose, and a lack of knowledge about how to build it. Every person wants to feel that the work that they do is meaningful. Find me a person who says they truly desire for their work—for the majority of their contributions in life—to have no purpose. We all desire it. So the problem, then, is: how do we create a purposeful workplace? Most workplaces operate under a complex inhuman chaos that easily leads to malaise and disengagement. The problems are cultural, structural, and endemic: infighting, passive aggressive behavior, individuality, game playing, ladder climbing, loss of motivation, complacency, self-interest, and more. These are a consequence of an organization which fails to think systematically, fails to understand human psychology, fails to base their work methods on real knowledge, and fails to understand the statistics behind all components human or otherwise. In essence, organizations that fail to achieve systemic quality through these means are the ones which fail to achieve purpose. Aim to improve the system, and the end result and the structure under which it's produced improves as a side effect. It is pure and almost zen-like in its simplicity, but instead, lacking the necessary knowledge and the means to implement it, most corporate environments devolve into a haystack of individual-focused complexity, which leads to the dark center of corporate culture which we all dread: the one which robs our work of purpose. Improve the system, understand how every part of it works, and improve everything. Begin at Deming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

rdtsc 12y ago
Things that can kill the workplace environment (some I've seen, others I've heard about during the years from acquintances): * Performance metrics that are too exact, defined or constrained. Where everyone turns to gaming them. Your peers' input becomes the crucial factor in your raise? "Ok, start rubbing everyone's back. Don't challange stupid decisions to avoid not being a "team player". Start seeing people let bugs slide so they can "save the day". Other stupid thing is "lines of code written and/or bugs squashed" -- Start seeing large files stretched out with useless drivel. Or stupid little bugs created and squashed to boost stats. * Management failure. Micro-managing. Breathing down people's necks. * Management failure. Too macro-managing. Disappear for days without letting others know. Assign projects then never check up on them later. * Management failure. Encourage in-fighting by assigning conflicting projects to people (tell Steve to make it blue, and then tell Joe to make the button green). * Management failure. Strategic decisions, product features are made and discussed in secret then ordered are sent from above to the workers. Workers don't know what the end goal is, just that they need to build this GUI or this Web page that does this one thing.

ams6110 12y ago

This is VERY common in university and municipal jobs. Many people at those insitutions are supurfluous and literally do nothing useful, or they may have one or two responsibilites carefully assigned to justify their position but in reality it's nothing someone else doesn't have plenty of time to handle. They get away with it because there's no pressure to show a profit, or penalty for a loss, at the end of the day. They have their budgets, and they spend that money. Ultimately these jobs are controlled by politicans, who hate to fire anybody because a) that might make them unpopular and b) political power in those organization correlates highly to the number of people who work under you.

shitlord 12y ago
I used to work for a beltway bandit and I experienced the same stuff described in the article. If you want an easy, comfortable job, that sort of work is perfect. If you want to do impactful work, it's the worst place you could be. Yet, that is exactly what you are promised: the opportunity to do purportedly important work, when all evidence points to the contrary. I just wish we could be honest with each other about this sort of stuff.

0x5f3759df-i 12y ago

This is what automation will create if we continue the logic that everyone has to work and if you don't have a job it's because you're a lazy freeloader. If we keep this mentality of a full time job for every person we are in for a rude awakening in the next couple decades. Automation is going to replace large segments of the economy and they will do that work better than a human ever did. The idea that everyone needs a job to be able to survive is an idea we need to let go of if we want to continue to progress.

zobzu 12y ago
well thats like the industrial revolution but at a different layer. i think another real difference is that we have way more people on the planet now (way too many, all scientific evidence points that out, too) thus this will be worse than the industrial revolution. Added to that, computers can automate a lot of "thinking jobs" as well, in fact. At some point we've to realize that: - you cant keep pooping babies because you feel like you're more important than the planet - you cant have a 8h work day for everyone, and you also can't enslave some people to these and have the other as the manipulative ultra powerful individuals Unfortunately that's exactly the state of the world today. If ever we solve this, we might even solve more important problems like energy, life, and what not - much more quickly than ever before. (and I therefore vote to be governed by skynet any day of the week)
- jjoonathan 12y ago
  > way too many, all scientific evidence points that out, too The hallmark of scientific evidence is citation. You don't provide any. > you cant keep pooping babies Developed countries typically have birth rates lower than the "sustaining" birth rate. > you also can't enslave some people to these and have the other as the manipulative ultra powerful individuals This is the elephant in the room. Labor vs capital is stacked as it is, and automation will make it worse. We have to try to figure out a way to deal with it before things get violent (and they will get violent if we don't).

BorisMelnik 12y ago

When I used to work at jobs like this, where I had not a lot of responsibility part of what made it OK was "the art of looking busy." This could be anything from" reading work emails, printing and highlighting sentences, making lists of people, places and things, taking notes of activities. The list could go on and on.

BashiBazouk 12y ago

I had a job like this. My boss/owner of the business abused a provision in the California unemployment system designed for seasonal lulls in labor pools. When ever I was out of work to do, I was sent home and those hours were paid for by the state at the usual unemployment rate. I was doing high level graphic production and design to which I am quite skilled. At crunch time I can get through mountains of work quickly. Then at normal work flows I could quickly run out of work if I gave it my all. Then there was days of work trickling in... Annoyed me to no end. Here I am in the best paying job I'd had so far in my career and the only time in my life I've been on unemployment all at the same time. I was making enough at full hours to pay bills and have a decent lifestyle but boy did that unemployment rate cut in to that. I became a master of looking really busy doing absolutely nothing. Or working a quick half hour job in to an hour and a half. Of course it helped the other hat I wore at the job was being the main IT guy...

somberi 12y ago

A related (somewhat humorous) article from The Economist: Quoting the article: "The first principle of skiving (or shirking, as Americans call it) is always to appear hard at work....The second principle is that information technology is both the slacker’s best friend and his deadliest enemy. ...The third principle is that you should always try to get a job where there is no clear relation between input and output. The public sector is obviously a skiver’s paradise. In 2004 it took two days for anyone to notice that a Finnish tax inspector had died at his desk. " Full Article: http://goo.gl/HftcFx http://goo.gl/HftcFx

psykovsky 12y ago
Why the tracking link? Yes, it's a serious question.
- forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
  I wondered the same thing. Used unshort.me for this. http://www.economist.com/news/business/21627649-how-thrive-work-minimum-effort-guide-skiving http://www.economist.com/news/business/21627649-how-thrive-w...
tkorri 12y ago
Oh I remember the case. The tax inspector was working alone late friday evening and he was found on monday morning. In this case I wouldn't blame the other employees for slacking...

netcan 12y ago

Ronald Coase is one of the most famous economists of the the previous generation. His most influential work is 'The Nature of the Firm' which starts fro a very interesting premise. Why do Firms exist? If bargaining, prices & markets are such an awesome and efficient thing, why don't the different employees in a firm just form markets, ecosystems where they buy and sell good and services and make ipods or packaging materials. Why do firms get so big? Why are firms run like market-less totalitarian dictatorships internally? If 10 year plans created by bureaucrats about how much lubricates, steel & cutlery should be produced fail so terribly relative to a prices/markets based economy, why are big plans dictated by executives and filtering down layers of management any better? His answer was transaction costs. Markets have transactions costs. Every transaction needs to be negotiated, sold, etc. That's a cost. To get efficient transactions really need to be repeated. The market needs to be big enough and transparent enough. The totalitarian nature of the firm has costs too. But, as long as these are less than transaction costs, it's preferable. Anyway, back to the slacking… I think a lot of the pathologies of our life at work are a result of this sort of totalitarianism. They are the inefficiencies. People are estranged from their work because they are estranged from it. There's a strong social pressure to express (or even feel) deeply connected to your work. It's an explicit demand from employers. The demand isn't as far fetched as wise guy cynics think because there's an inherent human tendency to vend meaning in work and in groups of people. We're wired that way Still, we're in this system where the motivation to work is unnatural (money, social pressures, your boss) to us. The feedback from our work is disconnected. For every Leonardo there have been a million oil painting sweatshop monkeys. A million poor shmucks trained to implement agile development in some dark dingy bank tech consultancy. Our personality at work is different. A meek, boring shell. Non work is one pathology among many. But, if you like positivity, it also means that our world is full of unutilized people.

tomaskafka 12y ago

Hypothesis: Purposefulness is limited by upstream = it can only decrease as you go deeper in a hierarchy. A.k.a. you can't build a (non-faked) purposeful company in a bullshit field. Think for example a would-love-to-feel-purposeful software development company supplying to some redundant government agency or corporate branch. In such a purpose-less field, you can only create a fake sense of purpose, and that only works as long as you find short-sighted people that don't realize that what they are living for is fake. Lot of 'creative' ad agencies do that, wasting best years of great 20-30 year olds to create award-winning animated microsites for cereals. What happens next is that these guys & girls drink away their unrealized frustration on countless parties (the work-hard-party-hard falacy), before realizing that things won't get better, and finally trying to find a purposeful place. Also, Zappos. Problem: The more you understand what's going on, the harder is to find a place that you would find purposeful. You become more and more unemployable by a majority of companies and are left with a choice of devoting your life to non-profit stuff (the important/non-urgent quadrant) while scraping by, or compromising your beliefs in some job-for-cash. Or trying to be that one lucky guy who built a lifestyle business that doesn't lie in bullshitting others.

x0rg 12y ago

This never happened to me, but I know people who had to quit their job because they were too bored. In reality, it's often the case that there are many people doing too much 9+ ours a day and people totally wasting their time. The sweet spot IMO is 8 hours per day the most productive you can be (you'll never get 8 hours of productivity).

yason 12y ago

Sometimes, does it matter at all? Once all important things get done eventually and relatively in time and the company earns enough money to chug along, it's just cost of doing business. The idle hours couldn't sometimes be cut away without hampering the productivity during active hours either. In public sector the situation is trickier. There are no objective indicators of how productive the office is. Unnecessary hours can easily pile up. There needs to be something that forces prioritization and tries to improve effectiveness. I'd say a fixed tax percentage might work: if the government can fund more of itself by raising taxes then it must work to prioritize its activity to only do the necessary work and to support the companies in that country to generate more profits.

Nursie 12y ago

"One day, in the middle of a meeting on motivation, I dared to say that the only reason I came to work was to put food on the table. There were 15 seconds of absolute silence, and everyone seemed uncomfortable. Even though the French word for work, ‘travail,’ etymologically derives from an instrument of torture, it’s imperative to let it be known, no matter the circumstance, that you are working because you are interested in your work" I would be coding and making software anyway, most likely. I often play with it in spare time anyway. But if you weren't going to pay me, I sure as hell wouldn't be doing it for you. And I'd be a liar if I said otherwise. Even if what you have me doing the exact same thing I'd be doing at home for nothing, sure as hell the only reason I come to work is because you pay me. I don't see why we can't be honest about this. This is also one of the reasons I'm a contractor/freelancer these days. So I don't have to pretend to care about your business, or pretend to be committed body and soul to the project. That's beyond the scope of my contract.

wglb 12y ago

This is an interesting article in light of patio11's about doing business in Japan: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ reply