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

Post by chii » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:01 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #319

anon9001 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to contribute to the value of the organization because you're a substantial equity holder, then talk to the founders. A sweatshop with high turnover should be less valuable to an acquirer than a strong team. Your initiative may be well received as leadership and you can get your promotion that way. If you want to stay in the organization and get promoted by performance metrics, then figure out what number…

You seem to have re-iterated the Gervais principle: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-... (although leader, model worker, autopilot are more polite terms than sociopath, clueless, and losers)

Post by WhiskeyJack55 » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:23 AM UTC

ShroudedNight wrote: post #370

WhiskeyJack55 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several companies that friends of mine work at institute a 10% personal project time policy. Where 10% of their week is devoted to personal projects. They pick any topic of interest related to programing, learn something new, and when they are done they show the project to the team to present what they've learned. I don't think they have a time limit per se. Some people I know have done work with the raspberry pi, or…

> ...might be arguably less directly applicable to work. Why is this a problem? IC continuing education isn't (primarily) about having them finish reading the RFC even though they've already gleaned what they needed for their immediate problem. Rather, it's about drawing in whole new areas of knowledge. It's about keeping your deck stacked with wildcards so when you get blocked by something hard, not covered by your…

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #322

holmboy_ wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continuing education in software engineering has always been a challenge for me. While my current employer allows for 20% time to learn new things, I find that I'm just unable to. Many employers (not all) place constraints on what one can do with that time. Typically the biggest constraint is that it must relate to the business in some way. As such, it can be hard to justify why you're spending your 20% time learning…

"As such, it can be hard to justify why you're spending your 20% time learning how load balancers work in nitty-gritty details since it's unlikely you'll be writing one from scratch or helping the company with it." Unless you use load balancers in non-trivial ways at scale and really need to understand the ins and outs of how they work to utilize them effectively.

Post by kaitai » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:51 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

That you should “always be learning” is absolutely true. It helps with neuro-plasticity and keeps you engaged. That said, as a manager I find it hard to get direct reports to accept sometimes that it is not only okay, but required, by me that they learn new things. I do what I can to encourage it, offer to buy books for people, give time to do online course work, etc. They often complain that they don’t feel like the…

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:54 AM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #252

Ididntdothis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think scrum, jira, backlogs and always tight deadlines condition people to never sit back and systematically learn something. Instead you feel the urge to always “produce” and feel guilty if you don’t. At least his happened to me. Lately I am making a conscious effort to work from home for a day and take a Udemy class or read a book about something where I feel i don’t have enough background in. The modern frenetic…

In theory, scrum is supposed to provide intentional non-ticket time after retro and before the next ipm/scrum meeting. That time can and should be used for learning, hacking, contributing, etc. Reality of course differs.