I've come to think after my last place that I'd take a person who does high quality work slowly over someone (I'm talking about you JASON) who literally tries more and more random things until it finally sort of works... until anything changes and then the whole system breaks in any number of ways.
Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
421–430 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
#422Long time manager here. I call this "work-shy" and it is neither ubiquitous nor rare, I'd guess about 10%-20% of all employees, and it's certainly not unique to software or even to white-collar work. You should think of this as a problem. Even if it's not for your boss or your teammates (and it will be, eventually), it is for you. It is soul-crushing to fill up the hours. Two pieces of advice: 1) The "good" solution…
The alternative is to embrace minimalism / the FIRE lifestyle and hopefully skate by long enough to not have to work by the time the company folds and live off of investments -> then into retirement). I think most "underwork" on the job is a motivational issue and stems from one of a few overlapping reasons: 1) No way to promotion/advancement (dead end job) 2) Overqualified and bored 3) Unclear goals, no feedback, an…
> Unclear goals, no feedback, and/or undiagnosed ADHD
This makes me wonder how many people who secretly believe they may have undiagnosed ADHD are actually suffering from unclear goals and no feedback.
Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except the sponsors of the project that pay to put food on everyone’s table?
Sometimes the sponsors get some money in return for contracts and such. It's not ethical but in my experience it's pretty common. These people rarely want the project to end.
Of course. They approve it and they get a cut of the budget they approve.
Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
#424The same could be asked about upper management. They earn 10x our pay, so their output is 10x more value than our work, and they work 10x harder, right? In our normal 8 hour work day, they must work 80 hours. Except a full day is 24 hours. Why is the onus always on the bottom workers to be honest? Why are we trying to feel guilty about our working hours vs how much we're paid? Because it's clear salary is not tied to…
The whole point is the compensation is not based on how hard you work but the value you provide and what the market will support. Of course upper management works roughly the same hours as everyone else, but they also have far more responsibility.
> but they also have far more responsibility
This is relative. In my experience, many people in upper management have held little to no real responsibility because they were the types that if all goes right, it's their doing, but if anything goes wrong, it's the fault of someone below them. I find this more true for middle managers, but I have seen this with upper management numerous times.
Again in my experience, the higher in rank one achieves, the less real work they end up doing when compared to their subordinates. Delegating isn't that hard to do and takes very little time -- and there are some master class delegators out there.
That all being said, I do respect and love working for upper management who understand, who care, and who do as much as the rest of us. I currently work for such individuals and it's part of the reason I've stayed as long as I have.
Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
#425Are you me? I was remote before the pandemic and this has been my life since I went remote.
I am constantly praised on my work (both in quality and quantity) but I keep telling myself it can't be true. I normally do 1-2 hours of work a day right before my standup (often doing to work I said I was going to do the previous day) and every once in a while I work more if I feel motivated or if there is a production issue/big release. I know I do good work but I am often flabbergasted that I'm seen as such a good developer given that I'm putting in so few hours. I'm not trying to boast here, far from it, but I get a TON of praise and it bewilders me and I feel guilty.
My biggest issue is what I do with the remaining time. Sure, sometimes I clean, do laundry, cook, etc but more often than not I just lay in bed and listen to/read a book or play a game. I end up doing next to nothing every workday until 5 when I feel "free" and I can finally go do whatever I want. For a long stretch at the start of the pandemic I would just scroll through TikTok for hours, always with a small voice in the back of my head telling me I would be found out. I know depression is to blame for some of my lackluster motivation, and it's something I'm working on, but even so I have zero interest in suddenly putting all that extra time into work, especially when they are thrilled with my performance as-is. What sucks is there is no one I can talk about this with. My friends would probably get mad or think less of me and so I just keep quiet.
I keep thinking that if/when they hire someone to do the same work as me that I'll have to step it up since it will be obvious, at least to the other person, that I'm not giving 100% but even then I'm not sure. I've always outperformed my peers and so when I took my most recent job I never put in 100%, 80% max at the start and now it's down to 10-20% while putting out plenty of good work. Why should I work harder? I can't bring myself to care about it though I wish I could funnel some of that extra time/effort into my side projects.
Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
#426I usually felt guilty whenever i spend a couple of hours doing nothing. Usually those breaks come in because either a) i know i have a lot of time to complete my tasks 2) i don't have much work to do.
Then i started going to office after years of WFH and noticed the amount of time we spend on coffee and lunch and still being called productive because of those same two 2 points .
So i implemented a plan , when on WFH, i started playing chess during those long breaks. Believe it or not, the breaks were reduced gradually because either i win a lot and then i move over or i lose a lot and then i move over. goes without saying, your mileage may vary
Slowly after making it a habit, i was greatly able to reduce my non productive time to somewhat productive. like reading something about the tech or learning ..
Now being productive can be a subjective thing. you might read a lot about tech that has nothing to do with your job , so you are not productive for the company you work for , but still being productive to oneself.
Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
Large companies have a tendency to throw up all sorts of impediments to actually getting shit done. Simple tasks can take 3 weeks because there are 7-9 dependencies throwing sand in the gears. This not only provides plenty of cover for not getting stuff done it also saps the motivation to get it done quickly. Like, if X team sits on your request for a week that prevents Y feature from getting out are you really gonna…
Yep. Or never mind dependencies: you're simply getting interrupted so many times that between zoom calls, slacks, and emails, that a 2 day tasks turns into 2 weeks.
Slack culture is very toxic to productivity. Numbers of channels grows forever and at least in the places where I've been that use it, there's an expectation for a reponse to everything within a minute. So one ends up all day just looking at it, can't get any work done with interruptions every couple minutes.
Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
#428Long time manager here. I call this "work-shy" and it is neither ubiquitous nor rare, I'd guess about 10%-20% of all employees, and it's certainly not unique to software or even to white-collar work. You should think of this as a problem. Even if it's not for your boss or your teammates (and it will be, eventually), it is for you. It is soul-crushing to fill up the hours. Two pieces of advice: 1) The "good" solution…
It is interesting the number of people who see this as a problem that needs to be fixed. Since this specific comment is near the top, I might as well address that here. Why should I work more? How will that improve my life? My self-worth is derived from what I do outside of work to the extent that I don't prioritize professional validation. The primary reason I work is for money. I make enough money that I can live a…
I think if you're working 10-15 hours a week and spending the extra time with your family and doing things that are fulfilling to you that's great.
But the strategies mentioned to find more meaningful work are probably more useful if you're doing 10-15 hours of real work a week and then spending the remaining hours sitting in front of your computer browsing YouTube and doing nothing of value while pretending to be at work. If you have to pretend to be at work, then you can at least fill that time at the computer with something productive.
Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
#429I usually felt guilty whenever i spend a couple of hours doing nothing. Usually those breaks come in because either a) i know i have a lot of time to complete my tasks 2) i don't have much work to do. Then i started going to office after years of WFH and noticed the amount of time we spend on coffee and lunch and still being called productive because of those same two 2 points . So i implemented a plan , when on WFH,…
Did you get any better at chess?
Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
#430I fire engineers like you. You're lucky. :)
I fire managers like you. You're lucky. :)