Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by Hannan » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:13 AM UTC

Viliam1234 wrote: post #337

Ididntdothis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“40 hours is what they are set up for and it is hard for them to figure out how to be flexible, even if they want to.” I had the same experience. asked for 32 hours week with corresponding pay cut. The HR people barely could comprehend the idea and certainly didn’t have a process for dealing with such a request.

I also tried to get a 32-hour week, interviewed with multiple companies, and at the end got a deal for mere 50% of my usual (40-hour) salary. And the company still felt they were doing me a big favor. Within my probationary period I decided that 50% of money for 80% of time is too much of a discount; that I could simply work full-time for a year or two and then take a break for a year or two instead. But I never actu…

I currently work 28 hours per week. This is the second time this has happened in my career. Both times the path was "be an FTE for a while at 40hr/wk, produce, wait for something bad to be suggested, quit, take contractor offer for same pay at reduced hours."

I don't imagine this works for companies with employees numbering over ~250 or so, so I've been very lucky.

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

#392

Post by jillesvangurp » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

A better way of thinking of this is in terms of freelancers learning on the job and charging customers for this openly. Often there is a mutual benefit where even having access to a person with the ability and willingness to learn is worth something to customers.

I recently did a python project for a customer where I was very open about my limited python skills and the fact I hadn't really used it in over a decade. But I got them to pay for me because I had other skills that they needed (building search backends using Elasticsearch). In the end, I brushed up my python skills on the job and had a happy customer. It wasn't a big deal but I definitely spent some billable time googling the basics of using Python (I literally had to google the syntax for e.g. for loops, lambdas functions, and a few other things).

I would argue my ability to learn and adapt is actually what makes me valuable. I can wrap my head around complex tech stacks, new languages, etc. while applying skills I already have.

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

#393

Post by flomble » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:28 AM UTC

yters wrote: post #225

Braggadocious wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic but that still sounds like it's framed within the enlightenment period. If you're reading books and valuing literacy, (ie individual interpretations of texts, as opposed to being told what a book means) then you're still framed within the "enlightenment view of reality."

By 'enlightenment' I'm referring to a particular worldview perpetuated to denigrate the Western tradition and broader philosophical outlook in favor of a focus on empirical sciences and radically egalitarian social mores. The basic idea of 'enlightenment' is there is no objective and learnable purpose to the natural world and human society, and instead once we learn how to manipulate the natural world we can subject…

It's strangely refreshing to see this particular criticism of the Enlightenment; I'm much more accustomed to hearing criticisms from the postmodernist direction. I disagree with your statement in a previous post that their arguments are incoherent, particularly the early exponents like Foucault or some of the Frankfurt school. I'd also point out that much of the Enlightenment tradition is not ontologically materialistic; in particular, German Idealism embodied in Kant, Schopenhauer etc. stands against materialism.

Based on what you're saying here, are you arguing for a kind of Scholasticism?

Finally, your criticism of a "radically egalitarian" view is somewhat perplexing to me. Would you mind expanding on that point?

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

#394

Post by travisjungroth » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:32 AM UTC

BigJono wrote: post #301

vorpalhex wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like that everywhere > product guys cycle through the status of each dev team members’ items during each daily standup Something has gone horrible off the rails. Standup is supposed to be a quick time for every team member to raise any blockers primarily, with a quick "here's what I did, here's what I'm doing" type blurb. The benefit of standup is identifying blockers and if engineers are getting mired in pr…

If this were the case then standups would be totally useless unless the org was so cooked that nothing gets done unless someone is made accountable in front of the entire team. If I run into a blocker why would I wait until the next morning to try and get it resolved?

I had a new manager start his first weekly meeting by asking if there was anything on fire. People filled the ensuing silence with recent annoyances. Of course nothing is on fire right now (and I get it’s a metaphor). If something is “on fire”, I’m not waiting till the Monday meeting to bring it up. I’m not even going to attend the mandatory meeting while I put it out, if that’s when it happens. That’s the definition of on fire.

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

#395

Post by sailfast » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:36 AM UTC

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #321

puPoh wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like... gasp management always used agile to implement micromanagement all along.

I logged in just to make this same comment but you beat me to it. Agile is micromanagement in disguise, and we fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Are you sure you haven’t just always been micromanaged and this is another way for that to happen? All things can be abused for bad purposes.

I haven’t heard too many examples of “oh man we used to be free and ship great features on time but now that we have a backlog and talk to each other every day it’s a hellscape death march”

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

#396

Post by Aeolun » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

Ididntdothis wrote: post #167

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…

“40 hours is what they are set up for and it is hard for them to figure out how to be flexible, even if they want to.” I had the same experience. asked for 32 hours week with corresponding pay cut. The HR people barely could comprehend the idea and certainly didn’t have a process for dealing with such a request.

It was fairly common (when I lived there a few years ago) in the Netherlands to negotiate down to 80% time, and I even managed 60% once.

Of course it’s a pay cut, but it was fantastic :)

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

#397

Post by Aeolun » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:40 AM UTC

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.

Or just switch? The knowledge will come once you fix your first bug.

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

#398

Post by thrav » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:42 AM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #253

thrav wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Prove that you can do your job in less time, and use the slack for learning. Dip out early on days you need to speak at things. Work from home on days you know will be slow and do learning while no one is around. It’s not difficult to pull that off at a big company.

> Prove that you can do your job in less time If you prove it, they may just expect more from you in the same amount of time.

I’m not advocating for announcing completion and broadcasting your efficiency. I’m just saying, ensure you won’t fall behind working on your real job 32 hours a week. That shouldn’t be too difficult in most cases, given all the research on productivity.

If you can’t do that, they were right to refuse the 32hr/wk proposal. If you can, just do it, sneak in some studying, and act like it took you 40.

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

#399

Post by syndacks » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:43 AM UTC

knightofmars wrote: post #126

rvense wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your lead made a mistake there. Someone with understanding of both FE and BE is worth as much as one of each, especially when they have intimate knowledge of your actual code.

>Someone with understanding of both FE and BE is worth as much as one of each... Someone with understanding of both FE and BE is valuable in certain situations. Companies love the idea of a "full stack engineer" because they believe they are getting two for the price of one. But in practice, and accounting for exceptions, that's not necessarily the case. A full-time FE with equal experience will be better at the fron…

I double majored in English and Economics and consider myself an amazing full stack developer.

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

#400

Post by austincheney » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:51 AM UTC

I have never been a fan of learning at work. It seems to impose a sort of group thought where employees learn by following patterns in place under the shadow of work culture and procedure. That has always struck me as highly uncritical and non disruptive.

Instead if you need new skills or want to advance your current skills my recommendation is to write an original application that solves some problem. Then you are forced to make original decisions and own the resulting consequences under risk of failure.