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Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

sloanreview.mit.edu

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Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#151

Post by shantly »

chewyshine wrote: post #89
Bootwizard wrote: post #9

I'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.

Maybe the lead made a mistake. Or, I hate to say it but...maybe OP isn't viewed as HiPo and worth the perceived investment. There's always another side to a story.

Company won't help you advance your career = they don't think you can, or for some reason don't want you to = you should start interviewing elsewhere.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#152

Post by Bootwizard »

overcast wrote: post #70
Bootwizard wrote: post #9

I'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.

So what about the server team lead? What did they say? Seems to me it doesn't matter what your existing frontend guy has to say about it.

They just hired more people but were severely short staffed during a crunch, so the server team just worked 80+ hour weeks until those new guys came on

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#153

Post by shantly »

ken wrote: post #25
Bootwizard wrote: post #9

I'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.

I’m amazed to hear this from programmers. You can learn this for free, anywhere, at any time. I’m no longer in software and when I want to upgrade my skills, I’m doing it on my own time and my own dime. Often doubly so if I have to take time off work (hourly) for training.

I think spending about a third of my waking hours thinking about stupid computer shit is already plenty. If an employer doesn't want to help me use some of that time to get better at what I do, I bet someone else does.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#154

Post by jjice »

I was an intern at a relatively large retail company this past Summer and there were quite a few points where I had nothing to do except wait on database access to be approved. This took a few hours minimum.

I bookmarked the Rust book and started to learn the language in order to keep me stimulated. I also read a lot of Wikipedia articles on older computer scientists because I love history. Overall a good experience, but definitely would have liked a more engaging job overall.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#155

Post by alxlaz »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #99
Braggadocious wrote: post #82

Earlier 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.

There is an old adage about this:

Q: What happens if we provide education and training to our employees and they leave?

A: Well, what happens if we don't, and they stay?

Growing a company's knowledge and skill base is an investment, not charity. Companies that don't do it reap exactly what they sow -- they're the same companies whose CEOs will otherwise loudly complain about how difficult it is to find skilled employees, especially at a senior level, and decry the terrible state of universities. As if everyone else just stumbles upon people with twenty years of experience in a particular niche on the street.

Yes, some people will leave. The smart thing to do is to convince as many of them to stay and to stay on good terms with those who leave. Keeping a loyal employee base whose knowledge and skills remain largely unchanged after joining the company doesn't provide any kind of meaningful growth.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#156

Post by chrischen »

wool_gather wrote: post #121
znpy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The middle ground here is that I'd try to grasp the basics on my own time, then ask the switch. I can understand your boss though: would you swap a competent employee for an incompetent one, paying the same amount? Probably not. Yes, you retain your knowledge about the front-end, but you wouldn't be using that. My advice would be to work out the basics on your time and then ask somebody in the backend team to be invo…

> would you swap a competent employee for an incompetent one, paying the same amount? But this is the glass-half-empty boss. The glass-half-full boss is happy to have a competent employee who can be called upon when needed for important front-end stuff and is picking up backend work at a faster rate than the intern the team would have otherwise, because they're already an experienced engineer (with knowledge of the f…

Same could be said for the employee. If the employee invests in his own competency he can negotiate a higher salary or quit and work elsewhere.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#157

Post by ryanmcbride »

When I took my current job my manager told me that learning on company time is encouraged, even if it's not directly applicable to what you're doing (within reason). I didn't really expect that to be the case when I started, but it actually is and it makes me insanely happy.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#158

Post by yters »

shantly wrote: post #144
yters wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, due to the vocational focus, the broader topics are often watered down introductions.

They were total jokes at my (admittedly) second-rate-at-best state school. Most of the gen-ed courses failed to go beyond material we'd covered back in 10th grade or so. The English courses were probably the nearest to being remotely "serious" since they at least expected writing and critical reading on a slightly-above-high-school level, usually pretty early in the course.

Yes by ultra focus on tech, we can provide a decent living, but lack the bigger picture and become the peons of those who know better, and can articulate their view clearly and logically.

E.g. look at any PG essay that tried to talk about broader philosophical or political issues and you'll see this limitation. His frame of reference is stuck in a recent enlightenment framing of the world. Granted, PG is indeed a great communicator in technical fields.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#159

Post by tehjoker »

True, but because competition drives relentless increases in productivity business will cherry pick people that managed to learn off their dime rather than train people. It's simple. Only force applied by people or governments changes the rules enough to open space for these kinds of things.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#160

Post by gambler »

ENOTTY wrote: post #2

Frankly, if your workplace doesn't already think so, it's a red flag.

Many managers believe that learning is something that you should do on your own time. Even when "learning" boils down to memorizing idiosyncrasies of some framework/protocol/micro-controller they force you to use.
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