Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#861

Post by mihaigalos » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:12 AM UTC

rektide wrote: post #148

i_dont_know_ wrote: post #18

I think there's also something to be said for passive processing. Sometimes I'll know I need to write some code or some function and I'll just think about it in the back of my head while doing other things, sometimes for a whole day or two. Then I'll sit down and write it in like 20-30 minutes. Did I work 20-30 minutes, or have I been working for a day or two? I would say a day or two, and the 20-30 minutes was the t…

It is SHOCKING beyond words to me what accepted dogma it is that the human resources/devs only work on one thing at a time, they start at the beginning, plan, write, test, & code review the thing, and then move on. It's a huge waste of human potential. Background processing is vital. Getting hit by the various silly hurdles in the path to shipping- having to go from the elation of getting something done to having to…

> My top theory is just that it's convenient for management purposes. That company's are bad at assessing progress, that we're afraid of situations that aren't ultra-well scheduled & predictable, and that we treat programmers like cogs in a machine because we're too afraid to try for better.

This is because the classical consecrated need for project management. Back in the day, you would have factory workers overseen by managers to a) establish a process for the work to be done which is easy and precise - "plan the work" and b) oversee it - "work the plan". The process is, in their view, necessary so why question it?

SW development is a creative process which doesn't really lend itself to rigid guard railing of classical project management.

Some advocates outright speak against managers because of the penalty the rigid process has on creative throughput. Quote from https://www.simplethread.com/agile-at-20-the-failed-rebellio... :

> The important piece that gets forgotten is that Agile was openly, militantly anti-management in the beginning. For example, Ken Schwaber was vocal and explicit about his goal to get rid of all project managers – not just get the people off his projects, eradicate the profession from our industry.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#862

Post by foxhop » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:40 AM UTC

Dave3of5 wrote: post #823

ploxiln wrote: post #717

> Do people regularly run into coworkers like me during their career and simply ignore it because they find it too awkward to criticize them? Have I just been incredibly lucky and every boss I have had is too incompetent to notice? Do I have imposter syndrome and I am actually a 10x developer whose laziness makes them a 1x developer? Lazy developers don't really bother me, if you do a couple hours of high-quality wor…

Always found that quote interesting as is not really correct. Everyone is a percentage of those traits. No one is universally clever and never does anything stupid for example. It's putting people in a box which people love to do.

A generals job is to generalize and elevate the key agents.

The industrial idiot will cause more work, build in you into a corner, waste time, resources, people, lives, on counter productive missions and projects which distract from essential work, cause bottlenecks in any or all systems at once.

Objectively bad processes run away with more power than deserved.

An army of autonomous actors only works if you root out the problems and agents causing drift.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#863

Post by foxhop » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:48 AM UTC

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #814

ploxiln wrote: post #717

> Do people regularly run into coworkers like me during their career and simply ignore it because they find it too awkward to criticize them? Have I just been incredibly lucky and every boss I have had is too incompetent to notice? Do I have imposter syndrome and I am actually a 10x developer whose laziness makes them a 1x developer? Lazy developers don't really bother me, if you do a couple hours of high-quality wor…

Massively agree with this, either do nothing or do it right. I’m a contractor and change around a fair bit and when I join a project you can tell if it is good or ok or terrible. My current project is terrible, the people who set it up tried but have that real lack of understanding what is required (they have clean code but no tests) it is really hard to debug and takes forever to deliver anything. If they had just d…

You don't go to war with the tests you want, you go to war with the tests you got. Write a test or swim blind with the rest of the fish.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#864

Post by blunte » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:02 PM UTC

alunchbox wrote: post #277

blunte wrote: post #19

In my lengthy career, most of my jobs have demanded significant and intense amounts of effort and attention. With very few exceptions, I have certainly put in 6+ hours of focused work on average per day. If I were your manager, we would have a talk about what motivates you and what you need to be productive.

how do you stay focused for 6+ hours? Is it spread across the day in multiple small sessions? Meetings are horrible and even then a lot of times I find my work also ties in with many other individuals that cannot proceed without communication and often time blocked. I'd love to be more productive throughout the day but the current org doesn't feel it's possible.

I have worked remotely for most of the last 12 years. That allows me to isolate myself better (to focus), and it allows a bit more flexibility to work when I'm in the flow. But I'm an unstructured (or so broadly structured that it might resemble a bit of chaos) person, so I'm happy to work any time day or night when I'm energized and in the flow.

But even when I was in the office, aside from periods between projects where there's actually not much to do, I still was actively doing real work for most of each day.

The OP seemed to be describing just slacking off, but I think what you're describing is environments and circumstances which make it difficult for you to be productive despite your desire to be.

If the company you work for has ignorant practices and cannot learn from feedback, then they will just have to accept lower productivity. Managers have to understand how to schedule meetings (not too many, and not fracturing time too much). I stopped working for companies that had hostile practices. But if you don't have the option to change jobs, you just have to accept that you will only be useful 25% of your day maybe. And if that starts to eat at you, like you're wasting your life and your abilities, then it's time to consider moving/finding a better job.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#865

Post by shinryuu » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:10 PM UTC

pcthrowaway wrote: post #173

I've been there. Maybe not 5 hours a week but certainly 10. I was in a small company that got acquired, and the organizational bloat really killed my productivity. Having to deal with paperwork for payroll and pointless meetings was a distraction from the actual work. I think this contributed to a creeping burnout, which led to me actually working 10 to 25 (tops) hours per week for maybe a year or two. Eventually I w…

Rather than charging per hour start charging per day. Your client will get the output of a day's worth of work that will include your necessary breaks. That should make it easier for you.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#866

Post by bncy » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:11 PM UTC

fernandotakai wrote: post #125

oceanghost wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the best ideas I've had in my career were in the shower before work. The problem is making that a regular occurrence.

ha! my wife once asked why i was speaking english while showering. i told her that 1. i can only think in english when thinking about work and 2. saying stuff out loud helps me organize my thoughts and this is specially easy while showering because i don't really have to concentrate.

Same here, I do that even when coding, helps me with processing stuff in real time.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#867

Post by robmccoll » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:31 PM UTC

ploxiln wrote: post #717

> Do people regularly run into coworkers like me during their career and simply ignore it because they find it too awkward to criticize them? Have I just been incredibly lucky and every boss I have had is too incompetent to notice? Do I have imposter syndrome and I am actually a 10x developer whose laziness makes them a 1x developer? Lazy developers don't really bother me, if you do a couple hours of high-quality wor…

Yes! I bucket people into paddling the right direction, sitting in the boat, and paddling the wrong way. With enough momentum, you can tolerate the people that are sitting in the boat. Sometimes they have good reasons and it's temporary. The people always actively working against progress need to be overboard. Smaller teams may need all paddlers. I'd like to think I'm always paddling and usually the right direction.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#868

Post by dsr_ » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:40 PM UTC

dx034 wrote: post #855

dsr_ wrote: post #64

I've hired people like this by accident, and let them go as soon as I figured out they weren't going to change. I have not noticed them having trouble finding other jobs -- almost always at much larger companies. On the other hand, I assume that people typically have 2-4 hours of good thinking in them per day; that it takes time to learn complex systems; that a smoothly running system should not need attention every…

But you mean people who don't work and you see it in their output. What if someone works 5 hours per day but produces as much output as other team members? I understood that this is more OP's case.

OP says:

"Then I successfully bullshit my way through our next stand-up to hide my lack of production."

and

"I often don't understand the technical details other engineers discuss in meetings."

The implication that I took away is that OP is not productive.

I have no problem with a productive team where it happens that some (or all) of them work best by letting issues sit in the back of their head until their subconscious produces results. My work always has unpredictable interruptions which need to be addressed at various levels of urgency, so we need to have the capacity to address emergencies, then settle down and get back to projects. I encourage everyone on my team to allocate time during the workday for education, current events in the field, and discussion with other employees about what they are doing. That last has been particularly difficult over the last eighteen months...

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#869

Post by Forge36 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

I've met others who could never manage to get things done. I was never in a position to call them out on it formally.

1. What do you fill your time with at work when you aren't working? IE: YouTube, Doodling, or reading? (I'd count reading code as working).

2. How often do you think about your work? It's it only the 10 hours you claim, or do questions such as this one occupy your mind? (An extreme: ever dream about your work problems and solve them?)

3. How are you choosing what to work on? It's implied important else I'd assume you'd be fired.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#870

Post by sharkbird2 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

As a software developer who has worked within the university world for about 15 years, this seems very common to me. In my experience, most developers don't actually DO very much. They do some small thing here and there, but they mostly just coast their way through the weeks.

That seems to be about 80% of all developers & syadmins. Then you have the other 20% which are actually really hard working & productive and are basically carrying the rest on their shoulders.

It used to upset me, but now I think it just is what it is. Call me jaded I guess.

It's often not people among those productive 20% that gets promoted either, that seems to depend mostly on other factors, so OP's story does not surprise me.