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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

#171

Post by Braggadocious »

yters wrote: post #116
avgDev wrote: post #109

Earlier 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…

I like how a liberal arts education is "divergent from the norm" now. The primary function of university is to make people read for four years. Business degrees, CS degrees, essentially job training programs are a bastardization of the institution.

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

#172

Post by frogpelt »

Braggadocious wrote: post #82
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.

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 are correct. But that also frees us to study what we want. Which is why some people end up studying Liberal Arts and have very little employable market demand.

When corporations start sponsoring degrees you will see a lot less "fluff" in those forms of higher education.

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

#173

Post by leshow »

aczerepinski wrote: post #83

I’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…

Me too. The company benefits in the long run. I've never had any complaints. In general I've found no one ever complains if you spend time learning.

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

#174

Post by Sammi »

ThaJay wrote: post #117
aczerepinski wrote: post #83

I’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…

Very much this. If the management culture at your workplace is so sick they feel the need to make this behaviour a problem, there are probably other things wrong with the culture there.

Yes it is a huge red flag in general. If your company discourages learning on the job, you run, cause the company is only heading down hill.

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

#175

Post by Ididntdothis »

msluyter wrote: post #94

When I was a dev lead I came up with the concept called a "learning spike," where a developer would pick a focused topic to dive into for a set period of time[1] and then do a short[2] presentation of learnings to the entire team. This would be backed by an official story in Jira or whatnot. The goal would be for the developer to choose something that sparked their interest (within the loose boundaries that it be at…

“I think the problem was that the short term opportunity costs were too high when everything was on fire (which was often).”

That’s such a sad way of thinking but pretty common. In addition a lot of people seem to be thinking that if not everything is on fire all the time they are moving too slowly.

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

#176

Post by dv_dt »

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.

If there's one thing I've learned between being a new engineer and a senior eng is that you can just take a small slice of time in your work schedule to learn. You don't have to clear this with anyone. You're salaried, take an hour or two a week to learn something new. You're getting paid for your technical judgement, use it to invest in something relevant and deepen your ability to judge. It pays off for both you and your employers even if they're not willing to formally fund training in large dedicated chunks.

Edit: clarified schedule to work schedule.

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

#177

Post by yters »

Braggadocious wrote: post #171
yters wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I like how a liberal arts education is "divergent from the norm" now. The primary function of university is to make people read for four years. Business degrees, CS degrees, essentially job training programs are a bastardization of the institution.

My particular liberal arts program is "divergent from the norm," including modern liberal arts programs. Just about all programs, liberal arts or otherwise, are completely framed within an enlightenment view of reality, largely due to dogmatic materialism. Classes that do diverge from materialism have lost a coherent way to talk about an alternate worldview, leaving their terminology sounding very wishy washy and illogical, like a woo woo Deepak Chopra.

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

#178

Post by shantly »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #163
runninganyways wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I dropped the golden handcuffs. So right now I'm flipping cars (replace a clutch, head gasket, etc.) driving for Lyft, and I might get a part-time job. I'm definitely not making as much money as I used to. But for me the traditional strategy of working for a company and saving up for retirement wasn't working anyhow. it was like well I'm either going to have to deal with this now when I can do something about it…

That takes a lot of courage, kudos. I've been in tech since 2006. I started out as a min wage tech support agent and worked my way up to a lead software dev position now. I do both back-end (C#) and front-end (Vue, Angular, React) development. In the last 3 months, I've switched jobs twice in a fruitless effort chasing that sense of passion and excitement I had a decade ago. I have it great; I make a 6-fig salary, I…

> I have it great; I make a 6-fig salary, I work remote full time, and never more than 40 hours. I feel guilty for complaining, but the work is just damn boring. I would rather be a janitor than code anymore. Some days I sit and just stare at my screen for an hour depressed as hell wondering how I'm going to get out of this and still provide for my family. We have chronic medical issues, so the insurance alone makes it hard to escape. The great recession also left me with severe anxiety about being broke and unemployed.

Jesus. Yeah, this entire thing hits home. I think a lot of mid- to late-career software folks are in this position of hating the work, feeling super guilty for hating the work, and not seeing a way out that won't risk their family's financial security.

My best job ever was a Summer job helping manage a campground. Outdoors, some social interaction, enough down time to read a few pages of a novel or do some pushups here and there, a bit of moving heavy things around, nothing whatsoever to think about when you leave for the day. If something like that paid 75% as much comp + bennies as my WFH software job and had similar future job prospects, I'd quit effective today and go do that. And probably cancel my home Internet service, sell my computers, and downgrade to a dumbphone. It's all just so incredibly low-value, once the shininess wears off.

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

#179

Post by erikpukinskis »

rectang wrote: post #76

I'm currently negotiating with two potential employers, one of them one of the bigs. It would be great if they would pay me to learn at work, but I don't feel like I'm in a position to ask for that — that's an industry=wide problem. So I'm trying to hack the system to get fewer hours: 30-32 per week. That gives me enough time to self-study, handle some of my own training and overdeliver, yet still have a life. I have…

I would just take the job and spend 90 minutes a day doing the things you mentioned. If anyone objects, well that’s conflict about how the flow of work will proceed, and dealing with those conflicts is everyone’s job.

You’re presuming that you’re not allowed to do the things you think are crucial as part of your daily work, but that’s already conceding too much to your superiors.

You do have to wait for the right time to do things, so it is justifiable as part of some near-term team goal. And be willing to wait when it’s not the time.

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

#180

Post by adamsea »

leshow wrote: post #165
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you try to study some of those broader topics, you're a sucker - don't study philosophy when an extra accounting or STEM course would be a "better" use of your time. So you super specialize and then after 4 years of college and 5 years in industry you're burnt out you have few other skills, so the only option is to get back onto the education treadmill to bet on another highly specific vocation where you once…

This is a very pessimistic world view. I found in the engineering faculty that the subjects we were taught were very broad. However, I continued to learn on my own in my free time after I got my degree. I've been doing this consistently for the last 8 years or so. I now have completely new skills and much more depth on knowledge on CS topics than I had coming out of university.

The point is that while for you it is your choice and pleasure to spend your free time doing something with a direct career benefit, for others, there are often other valid and important uses of their free time and so there is a cost to that.

The question is if that cost an individual occurs if they choose not to spend their free time on career-related skills is ethical or good for society.

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