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>Why not spend these 2 hours doing some small miscellaneous tasks? Because that's scope creep and it can create the expectation that it's part of my job, so th
by FLUX-YOU 11y ago
>Why not spend these 2 hours doing some small miscellaneous tasks?
Because that's scope creep and it can create the expectation that it's part of my job, so then I'll be responsible for it. Down the line, if one of those misc tasks becomes the ire of someone else and my name is attached to it (comment, commit, etc.), they'll contact me further down the line, perhaps when I'm dealing with something of my own. Then, at least, I have to explain that I don't maintain that and in the worst case (which has happened), I have to fight to not be responsible for it right then.
There's a balance in having your name associated with 'things' in a business. Some people might be good at being a know-it-all, being well-known, and handling everything (why aren't they running their own company?), but you'll increase your chances of interruption the more wide-spread your name is.
- omouse 11y agoYep exactly. Try adding unit tests to legacy code when your coworkers consistently ignore it. They'll be praised as fast workers who kinda sorta get the job done. All you'll get is called out for being slow and be tasked with fixing someone else's mess and your code won't be a maintenance burden. It feels like in software dev we can just make messes and move on without accepting responsibility. Increasing scope on yourself with those small misc. tasks also means accepting more responsibility than most software devs accept which makes you a target when things don't go smoothly either through your fault or someone else's. The biggest catch is that those 2 hours that you have butt in seat means you can't work on your own skills/side project for fear of the employer owning the code. The only thing you can do is take online courses at Coursera or Udemy as they're general enough skills.