People don't work as much as they say • Hacker News Board

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#211

Post by bandyaboot » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

tardigr8 wrote: post #108

orzig wrote: post #43

Valuable prospective, but (as is the gist of half my comments here): People are even more different than you think. RescueTime wrote a similar post, but +100 data: https://rescuetime.wpengine.com/work-life-balance-study-2019... Look at the second histogram. The average is roughly aligned with OP’s summary, but there is huge variance. These comments have already devolved into people telling each other they are lying,…

Another study here that uses an estimate for productivity. https://ftp.iza.org/dp8129.pdf His models show peak productivity between 5 and 6 hours a day. In my own experience, I have found productivity more related to sleep and exercise than anything else. Getting 7 hours good sleep (which means winding down for at least 30 minutes before sleep, a stretching exercise or meditation), and enough exercise every day to ge…

I’m impressed that you can produce any code at all on 2 hours of sleep.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#212

Post by sulam » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #191

flyinglizard wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each hour put in as a manager is many times the return of you as an IC (for better or worse). As technical work is an endless pit of time, it’s very difficult to be a hands on manager that’s effective.

Very entertaining to read a thread of managers telling themselves they shouldn't do any work, and then simultaneously describing not doing any work as "many times the return of you as an IC" (presumably counting themselves not interfering with the people doing the actual work as equivalent to doing the sum of that work).

Your imagination is very far from the reality of what managers do. I’ll give you a run-down of my day:

1) reading emails. These emails generally consist of a few categories of things — stuff I need to be informed about, questions, asks for permission (a special form of question), documents (generally decision and decision docs, or stuff from Product), and meeting requests.

2) meetings. These meetings generally consist of stuff that couldn’t be handled over email, but is a lot of the same stuff. It’s also status updates, not from my staff, but with my peers. 1:1s and staff meeting (mine and my manager’s) are the balance.

3) There is no 3. Really, it’s a full time job to do 1 and 2. Every now and then I will carve out some time to write a document myself, but in general that gets delegated because I will do it more slowly than someone who doesn’t have a pile of time-sensitive email and meetings to deal with.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#213

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #109

I do believe you can work 18 hours a day, since that's what I'm doing lately. But i don't think you can repeat it successfully every day. Since the biggest problem is being able to focus. I normally start with something very trivial that takes like 3 minutes and low effort and then I hope to be "launched". If it was a difficult/stressing day at work, it won't work.

[deleted]

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#214

Post by vincentmarle » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #201

analog31 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, I quickly realized that trying to be a technical contributor was a subtle and insidious form of micromanagement. Also, I could give myself my pick of the coolest tasks, which was unfair.

One of my favorite jobs was managing about a dozen Python programmers for 3 years…because I don’t know a lick of Python and it forced me to focus on the team more than the tasks. I got a lot of joy out of helping everybody develop, find their groove and helping them coordinate and learn from each other. The business demands I was shielding them from were extremely stressful though. A million things that everybody wan…

It sounds like you were trying to be too nice and were trying to appease both sides; that’s a losing proposition. You are working with adults, and adults should be able to handle bad news (if handled properly), and a good manager should be able to bring the bad news but at the same time give enough context so that everyone understands.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#215

Post by Strs2FillMyDrms » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:25 PM UTC

beepbooptheory wrote: post #172

Have spent a lot of my life doing manual labor, and still slightly in that boat now but do have a proper office job (receptionist). it was incredible for me to experience my first office job and realize this general fact. Not only was my body not sore everyday, but my day was suddenly largely my own, my "labor" was suddenly not defined necessarily by constant action. I dont even really have to think as much as I did…

I was at a construction site as field architect and the field work of a manager is nothing compared to that of the actual workers. So.. I tried coding at work, as I had a "lot" of spare time... and it was impossible. The stressful state of mind makes it impossible to make anything related to coding... the sun, the heat, the stress. Non skilled jobs, that are also menial and with this constant uncertain output, are a doom to those who work them(jobs) because they offer aboslute no progress to those who's lives depend on them. Intellectual and economical progress. Yet I've found people obsessed with field work..

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#216

Post by skeeter2020 » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:26 PM UTC

city41 wrote: post #200

_n_b_ wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, your main job is to make your ICs effective at doing their work. That means you need to be dealing with poor performers, rewarding with outstanding performers, trying to improve uneven performers, managing expectations from your management and shielding your team from the vicissitudes of your bosses as much as possible, fighting for things your team needs while shielding them from the demoralizing reali…

I agree with all of this. But I can honestly say in my entire career I've only had about two good managers. One of the biggest issues in my experience is knowing who the bad/good performers are. Most managers have no idea. I've seen bad performers just let be, and I've seen great performers fired for seemingly no reason at all. Both kill team morale.

I'll add that if a good manager works with an underperforming IC and makes a meaningful difference, it is VERY UNLIKELY the IC will acknowledge this in a timely way, or perhaps even know it happened. The best case scenario I've ever experienced is several years after the fact. That's a long time to wait for some positive external validation.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#217

Post by karaterobot » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:27 PM UTC

I like working all day. When I was a consultant, there was basically no other option that didn't involve outright lying to and stealing from clients. Not working while being paid to work made me feel anxious, and wasn't relaxing at all.

Now that I'm not a consultant for a larger company, I can definitely get away with taking significant breaks during the day. But, the bigger problem to me is not having the opportunity to get as much work done as I want: endless meetings, requests for feedback, Slack conversations, etc., make it hard to actually get as much done as I've planned to get done. This is the "maker's hours" problem.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#218

Post by skeeter2020 » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

hiptobecubic wrote: post #210

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, well...the consensus seems to be that I was a decent manager. I hated the job, but they kept me for 27 years, so I guess something went well. Glad it's behind me, though.

27 years is a long time to stay in a job you hate.

I'm an engineering manager with only 4 years in the role, and I think it's more of a lot of things I hate with intense periods of excitement, joy and satisfaction. You might be able to get 20+ years of that, depending on the details. That's why the OP's original analogy of a far less dangerous, corporate version of military combat resonated with me.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#219

Post by steve_adams_86 » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #137

orzig wrote: post #43

Valuable prospective, but (as is the gist of half my comments here): People are even more different than you think. RescueTime wrote a similar post, but +100 data: https://rescuetime.wpengine.com/work-life-balance-study-2019... Look at the second histogram. The average is roughly aligned with OP’s summary, but there is huge variance. These comments have already devolved into people telling each other they are lying,…

I’ve logged my work time (automatically with time tracking apps) for over a decade. I’ve also done a significant amount of hourly-rate consulting where I’m very careful to only bill for actual working time. When I was younger, one of my early challenges was that I had been misled to believe that only time spent in the editor, writing code counted as “working”. There’s a somewhat pervasive idea among devs that meeting…

You and I seem to have a similar history and current practices. I’m curious, how do you track your active time on your computer?

I use Qbserve on MacOS and I like it, but I haven’t reviewed options in maybe 5 years. It “just works” so I haven’t felt the need to explore.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#220

Post by skeeter2020 » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

Ntrails wrote: post #148

analog31 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, I quickly realized that trying to be a technical contributor was a subtle and insidious form of micromanagement. Also, I could give myself my pick of the coolest tasks, which was unfair.

The alternative is you give yourself the low priority low probability work. The 'noodle around this nasty thing nobody wants to touch' work that delivers tech debt reduction or a velocity win. It can be very fulfilling, but no critical path, no OKR or delivery date etc etc

yep, The self-assign for many managers should be boring spikes, documentation and execution tasks. You will need to get your tech fix somewhere other than your day-to-day.