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Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
131–140 of 467 posts
Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
#132My job gives us about 5K a year for individual training in addition to hosting meetups after work etc etc. The 5K can be used for training, conference and travel tickets etc etc. This is in Norway so everything is mostly nice all the time, but to be honest it is the first time I've had anything like this. Feels awesome.
Makes me want to work in Norway.
Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
You ever think about how much we subsidize businesses by paying for college ourselves? The older I get the more I think the university to corporation pipeline is a fucking racket. It also sucks for employees because here comes these kids who were allowed to learn about all the new technologies you wish you knew with zero distractions and other obligations, now comin' in hot on your heels to take yer jobs en masse, an…
You're correct but the difficulty is finding an alternative. Training employees who are then free to take their skills to another company that didn't bother with training gives that company the ability to lure workers away with higher salaries. There is a bit of tragedy of the commons in the skilled labor pool.
One approach that reduces the tragedy of the commons:
Some places require spending a certain percentage of payroll on training by law, failing which the employer must pay the difference to a government training fund. I live in the Canadian province of Quebec which is such a place. I think at least one major tech city in the US has a similar law, though I'm not sure.
Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
#134I'm currently a frontend engineer. I told my team lead a while back that I'd like to transition to the server side, especially since our server team is woefully understaffed and our frontend team is overstaffed. He told me "Sure but you'll need to learn all that stuff on your own time". So I never did it because I'm interested in doing other things at home.
>He told me "Sure but you'll need to learn all that stuff on your own time". So I never did it because I'm interested in doing other things at home.
When somebody says that to you, your responsibility is to either a) change jobs or b) learn during work time anyway.
Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Make that 4 hours a week and maybe you'll feel better.
Unfortunately, HR is in charge of 'professional development'. Noone wants to fight HR and would rather keep their cushy job, get paid and let this thing crater.
Unfortunately, that is when, as a team, you have to not classify things certain ways. Still meet your commitments, but bake in learning time. It just becomes part of what you do during the sprint. Likewise, you should not have a "testing time", "quality", or "security" budget - you just bake those into how the team operates.
Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
#136I'm currently a frontend engineer. I told my team lead a while back that I'd like to transition to the server side, especially since our server team is woefully understaffed and our frontend team is overstaffed. He told me "Sure but you'll need to learn all that stuff on your own time". So I never did it because I'm interested in doing other things at home.
>He told me "Sure but you'll need to learn all that stuff on your own time". So I never did it because I'm interested in doing other things at home. When somebody says that to you, your responsibility is to either a) change jobs or b) learn during work time anyway.
Currently in the process of (a) ;)
Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
#137I’ve always learned on the job and have never asked permission. I guess I’m lucky that I haven’t worked in the type of places where somebody’s looking over my shoulder every minute of the day. Somewhere around an hour a day every day and I’ve been doing it for years and nobody has ever said anything about it. I subscribe to those weekly emails for the programming languages we use at work and I read them when they com…
> I subscribe to those weekly emails for the programming languages we use at work -- Are these an internal thing for your organization? is it Just joining a mailing list for X language? Or is there some aggregation service you could share?
I found this good curated list: https://github.com/zudochkin/awesome-newsletters
Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
#138I'm currently a frontend engineer. I told my team lead a while back that I'd like to transition to the server side, especially since our server team is woefully understaffed and our frontend team is overstaffed. He told me "Sure but you'll need to learn all that stuff on your own time". So I never did it because I'm interested in doing other things at home.
You ever think about how much we subsidize businesses by paying for college ourselves? The older I get the more I think the university to corporation pipeline is a fucking racket. It also sucks for employees because here comes these kids who were allowed to learn about all the new technologies you wish you knew with zero distractions and other obligations, now comin' in hot on your heels to take yer jobs en masse, an…
In france, companies all pay quite a lot of money to some fund. The fund’s purpose is to finance employee education if they want to switch careers.
For instance, my friend was a mechanical engineer at Total, and after 3 years left to go study ML 1 year. Not only was the school all paid for by this fund, but the now student got a decent share of his salary everymonth. Best of best, he can go work for another company after his degree without any problem.
I thought that was a great idea. Although in practice, not every one is eligible to this particular program. I forgot how its called, CIFRE maybe
this particular degree isnt paid for by the government like the rest french education. Although it is taught at a very famous engineering school in france
Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. I went to a state University and it really made me a better person. I worked in groups with diverse group of people and while it was tough I enjoyed the experience. Plus, it wasn't really that expensive considering my income now and before. However, I guess non-technical/engineering degrees have different results.
I had a good experience at undergrad, but that was due to its divergence from the norm. It actually gave me the broader perspective by having me read thousands of pages of the primary literature for the Western canon, along with in depth critical group discussions of the texts, and learning to write coherent papers. Nothing in my CS degree impacted my life, except making me marketable. Much of the CS I could have pic…
This seems to be a very unpopular thought within CS culture and I find that really unfortunate. It feels like people are rushing to reduce their education, their lives, to optimized market interactions and that's a terrible lens for a human life. There may be an argument that it's a method of successfully navigating our society, thus enriching one's personal or familial existence, but it seems to me that would just lead to a poor societal structure with few common bonds among the people within it.
Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
At my school I was required to take many courses on broader topics. Personally I didn't like it, I took as many CS courses as I was allowed.
Yes, due to the vocational focus, the broader topics are often watered down introductions.
We were supposed to take "History of Technology" which I guess is supposed to be the corollary to "Business Math" classes or whatever. I really enjoy the humanities so I took all the real electives I could.