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Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

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Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#121

Post by phreeza »

mylons wrote: post #88
cm2012 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did an HN poll, how many hours per day do you work including meetings and etc, and the answer was a normal distribution around 6 hours a day. https://imgur.com/qdSltlM The left axis is years of seniority.

i don't think you have enough data to be linking this as if it has meaning. N=104 is not a large sample size.

It depends what you are measuring. It looks like the rough distribution is robust across seniority strata, hinting at the sample size probably being adequate.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#122

Post by mikewarot »

Most people work a bit, then slack a bit, or just pace themselves at a constant sustainable rate. You're doing fine.

What you don't want to find yourself in was my system administration job. At first there was plenty to do, my manager had me keep a log, so if a problem re-arose I could solve it more quickly. I did that, and things were good. After a few years, I'd done such a good job that I had a lot of slack time. There were some changes I wanted to make to the database, so I built a prototype of a new system that would have made things a lot better for everyone, and the production manager wouldn't even TRY it. I did this three different times before I finally gave up.

For the last few years, I showed up, jumped on any problem that arose, and waiting for quitting time, all the while knowing that I wasn't really delivering much value (other than absorbing uncertainty as far as the computers were concerned). Eventually economics caught up, and they outsourced the job.

You've got a steady flow of work... you'll be fine.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#123

Post by dekhn »

ska wrote: post #102
dekhn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm pretty sure it's true. I had to spend a ton of time explaining what I did and its values to my managers, like writing "ELI5" docs and then suddenly when they "got it" they paid very close attention to my work, and formed a team around me and established scope and got headcount. This is the messaging I got every single quarter: """David, your work is very good. All the people you work with say you're great and…

> What I concluded was that I was better as an L6 than an L7 This generalizes: often people want a promotion because it's the "next thing", but in many cases once you are mid career a promotion can make you pretty unhappy. Having a clear idea of how the work & responsibility will differ, and whether it is what you actually want.

My dad explained it to me like this when I was a kid. I ignored it for a long time, but it definitely stuck in the back of my head. I asked him if we wanted to get a promotion or be a manager but he said he thought his role as a documents library was fine.

"Do you know the Peter Principle? It's the idea that you get promoted when you do good work, but at some point, you'll be promoted to a level you're not competent to do, and get stuck there, or fired." He then expanded: "In this case, I perceive that the additional responsibilities and stress associated with a higher level position or management would make me unhappy, and I don't truly need the extra money."

For nearly my entire career I have pursued advancement with the utmost drive. Originally that was going to be grad school->postdoc->professor at major research university->make amazing discovery but at some point I realized that I was only ever going to be a professor as a minor reesarch university (and spend hundred+ hours a week treading water) and switched to the postdoc->software engineer->tech lead path. It wasn't until I did the Tech Lead role, got promoted to L6 and started to think about being a manager or getting to L7 (or getting Exceeds at L6) that I started to realize the truth of what my dad was saying. I've reached a level I'm perfecetly comfortable at, and could stay here until retirement. I was mainly chasing the advancement for ego and money reasons.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#124

Post by ProjectArcturis »

meowface wrote: post #99

This is exactly why I've concluded trying to go my own way is the best long-term plan for me. Before learning about YC and HN and such, the thought never really occurred to me. When I'm working on a personal project I'm really passionate about, my productivity is literally orders of magnitude higher than at any day job I've had. Months or years are compressed into days. For any ambitious personal project that I'm int…

I think you're correctly responding to incentives. If your hard work created a new product line for the company you work for, that made them millions, how much of that would you get? Close to 0%. So why should you work full-out for someone else?

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#125

Post by handrous »

8note wrote: post #56
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get paid for the value you deliver, not the effort exerted.

You get paid for the scarcity of your labour, unrelated to the effort you put in, or the value you produce

Right, but if you're in management, then management invariably decides that your labor is quite scarce and must be well-compensated. Go figure.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#126

Post by QuercusMax »

reader_mode wrote: post #104
QuercusMax wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely not in the same boat as the OP (trying to get away with doing the minimum), but because I hate to be the long pole on a project, I always try to get my pieces done well in advance of when they're required. As I work primarily on infra, I can usually manage to pull this off. What this means is that often when crunch time hits, I've got excess capacity I can use to help "row the boat" (or maybe bail out…

I've seen something similar backfire for a guy I worked with. He had this idea that he would get his shit done Monday-Thursday and have an easy WFH Friday. People ended up doing most work towards end of sprint and Friday would usually be really busy - basically he always had to be present and management would offload priority stuff to him since he was done. So he'd end up busting his ass all week. Eventually he got t…

Obvious your mileage may vary, and timeframes matter. I'm talking about getting my pieces done weeks or months in advance of when we need to ship, not days or hours.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#127

Post by brushfoot »

Talk to your manager. They may be okay with you looking for what to work on on your own.

I started doing that a couple years ago. I'd scout and talk to people about what they needed. Eventually we'd find a project that was worth working on.

It's gone really well. I was okayed to basically choose what I worked on after a while, so that made work more fun. And your employer may recognize that and reward it.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

#129

Post by treesrule »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #115

If your employer is happy with you, there is no reason to 'feel guilty'. Being competent (top 20%) and working 3hrs / day is way more productive than a middle performer working 12 hrs / day. In my personal experience: I work with people that, in 5 minutes, I can accomplish more than they can in a day. And those people are not stupid / unmotivated. I also work with people that, in 5 minutes, can accomplish more than I…

> Being competent (top 20%)

What sort of toxic exceptionalism led you to think that only 20% of workers are suitable for their jobs....

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