Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward • Hacker News Board

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#21

Post by j_jochem » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 7:57 AM UTC

codeonfire wrote: post #17

Ugg. I'm sorry about being negative but here are some protips: 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. 2. If you pretend to be a manager with hopes of being made a manager, all that you will accomplish is you are going to end up doing your job AND your bosses job. Your boss will look like a hero to his/her peers. You'll kill…

This really depends on the organization you're working for. If you're in a competitive corporate environment with lots of pusing and shoving, your interpretation is probably correct. If you work in a place that has flat hierarchies and lots of employee autonomy, the original blog author is probably right.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#22

Post by j_jochem » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 8:00 AM UTC

d23 wrote: post #20

> Companies don't need to go so far as the well-known Google 20 percent time A bit of a digression here. I love that people think the idea that letting employees spend a measly 20% of their time deciding what they should be working on is somehow an extreme idea. What portion of your typical day would you honestly say is devoted to solid, in-the-flow work? After all the meeting, context switches, random interruptions,…

Maybe I'm exceptionally lucky, but I work from home most of the time and get to prioritize my work myself. If I want to spend a day improving test coverage or build tooling, I am free to do so.

The price I pay for this is earning about 10k€ less a year, but I still think it's worth it.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#23

Post by kabouseng » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 8:16 AM UTC

codeonfire wrote: post #17

Ugg. I'm sorry about being negative but here are some protips: 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. 2. If you pretend to be a manager with hopes of being made a manager, all that you will accomplish is you are going to end up doing your job AND your bosses job. Your boss will look like a hero to his/her peers. You'll kill…

If I may, here is some of my protips:

- The best route up is hitching your wagon to your bosses wagon. So yes doing some of his work will make him look like a hero, which will get him promoted, and he'll think who is his most valuable / productive underling, which will get you promoted. Hopefully you doing some of his work free's up his time to be more productive in other areas. If your boss is a lazy PHB (Dilbert), get another job.

- It is far more difficult to try and get promoted around your boss. Don't try this, it doesn't work.

- Reward isn't always immediate. A previous manager of mine's advice was: You can't keep a good man down. Eventually someone will see the extra effort you put in and reward you for it, even if it is an ex colleage getting you hired at another company.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#24

Post by georgeglue1 » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 8:17 AM UTC

Sorry for another negative post. As a PM, the example stated seems a bit absurd and definitely not the environment for me.

A transparent and healthy company culture lets people (briefly) reason and talk about projects/strengths. There shouldn't be some sort of implicit beauty contest, rewarding aggressive employee who are underloaded.

There must be better ways to develop talent. The method listed also creates a lot of weird incentives/strategies if employees know what is going on.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#25

Post by georgeglue1 » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 8:22 AM UTC

bpchaps wrote: post #3

I don't understand how this would work reliably, honestly. My first impression is that there are just too many variables involved. I can see this favoring the "gotta get it now" crowd.

Especially if employees know their manager/org does stuff like this, employees will almost like bidders in a game theoretic auction; trying to keep flexible schedules, predicting the likelihood/quality of other vacuums coming up, evaluating how they stack up against their colleagues, etc..

I can imagine unhealthy situations where employees feel obliged to take on a vacuum, or have to compete for a vacuum they don't actually want.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#26

Post by onion2k » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 8:23 AM UTC

j_jochem wrote: post #22

d23 wrote: post #20

> Companies don't need to go so far as the well-known Google 20 percent time A bit of a digression here. I love that people think the idea that letting employees spend a measly 20% of their time deciding what they should be working on is somehow an extreme idea. What portion of your typical day would you honestly say is devoted to solid, in-the-flow work? After all the meeting, context switches, random interruptions,…

Maybe I'm exceptionally lucky, but I work from home most of the time and get to prioritize my work myself. If I want to spend a day improving test coverage or build tooling, I am free to do so. The price I pay for this is earning about 10k€ less a year, but I still think it's worth it.

I think that's a very important point that the article misses - some people will use spare work time to improve things they see could be done better rather than volunteering to do what their manager thinks needs to be done.

If you're a creative developer, or you have a passion for a specific area, then it's easy to ignore "unassigned work" in favour of doing things that you want to do instead. There can be a great deal of value in that that any manager needs to recognise. Someone who isn't voluntarily picking up unassigned work isn't (necessarily) failing to show leadership - they might be leading in an area where work isn't being created, whether it's assigned or not.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#27

Post by fmavituna » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 8:23 AM UTC

codeonfire wrote: post #17

Ugg. I'm sorry about being negative but here are some protips: 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. 2. If you pretend to be a manager with hopes of being made a manager, all that you will accomplish is you are going to end up doing your job AND your bosses job. Your boss will look like a hero to his/her peers. You'll kill…

> 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward.

Why do you assume "no reward"? What kind of company/manager wouldn't reward an employee who goes that extra mile?

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#28

Post by happywolf » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 8:24 AM UTC

This practice can easily be abused or/and cause unintented consequences. For example, once employees know this is a short cut for promotion, they will focus a lot of their energy and attention to find 'the void' and try to fill it, or act like they can fill it, thus neglecting the real work that need to be done.

In fact, this could be a cultural issue where everybody tries to act like taking a lead (usually by blanket emails including the management team that say "XXX has been launched!! Contrats Y!!"), however you will find behind the backdrop, things are just half-baked or down right totally fake, because real execution is boring and not getting attention. So once an excitement dies down, people will scramble to find another 'void' to fill. You may argue the manager can check the work, but in a big cooperation, the middle managers are most vulnerable, and thus they care much more about their own asses than to ensure their staff get real work done.

In other words, this tactic is only applicable when the company is small, say, less than 20 people, and the boss knows everybody and the projects well.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#29

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 8:24 AM UTC

fmavituna wrote: post #27

codeonfire wrote: post #17

Ugg. I'm sorry about being negative but here are some protips: 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. 2. If you pretend to be a manager with hopes of being made a manager, all that you will accomplish is you are going to end up doing your job AND your bosses job. Your boss will look like a hero to his/her peers. You'll kill…

> 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. Why do you assume "no reward"? What kind of company/manager wouldn't reward an employee who goes that extra mile?

[deleted]

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#30

Post by Cthulhu_ » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 8:29 AM UTC

fmavituna wrote: post #27

codeonfire wrote: post #17

Ugg. I'm sorry about being negative but here are some protips: 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. 2. If you pretend to be a manager with hopes of being made a manager, all that you will accomplish is you are going to end up doing your job AND your bosses job. Your boss will look like a hero to his/her peers. You'll kill…

> 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. Why do you assume "no reward"? What kind of company/manager wouldn't reward an employee who goes that extra mile?

Most. For most employers, an employee is a cost / benefit thing (see also: capitalism). The more work an employee does for the least amount of money, the better value that employee is to the employer.

Relevant to HN, this is common in SV; fixed working hours / contracts (i.e. 40 hr workweeks) - which unions have fought hard for to achieve - are frowned upon, working overtime, evenings, weekends, and odd hours are encouraged, and people are expected to be available for work pretty much 24/7, and to be doing something work / profession-related outside of work too (think hackathons, meetups, hobby / OS projects, etc).

Mind you my sweeping generalisation may not be accurate, I don't live / work there.