21–30 of 431 posts
If management hasn’t brought up any performance issues and you’re anxious about your job you need to talk to someone. You’re on the road to burnout.
I think for people who don’t agree with the article, perhaps seeking jobs that are outcome based are ideal. For those that are output based, I think it’s totally reasonable to cut back strategically.
Can confirm this will not get you promoted, it will just get you more work. You are more valuable as a peon than management if you are this good at your job. Always act dumber than your boss.
I worked pretty hard at getting promoted at my last job which unfortunately didn't happen. In the end I did the cost/benefit analysis of the amount of extra work I was doing compared to the 15% raise that I would get from being promoted. In the end I moved companies and got a raise of about 35%. I'm back to doing the same amount of work I was doing before I tried to get promoted.
I don't think I will ever work towards a promotion again.
Getting my task completed at my own pace makes me feel good. Often that is fast and on time. In my heart, when I touch the keyboard, I feel like a greyhound dog with a little Bob Ross afro - it can be a race, a competition, but it is also an expression of my art. This article makes me feel bad because in the authors world, people like me are relegated to worker bee monkies trying to please the bossman due to patholog…
> A bit off topic but as of late there is this creeping normalization of intentionally subpar or less optimized results I'm noticing in our industry but also general society. > When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? And these same people are going to expect nothing short of the best of the best from surgeons / plane pilots / car manufacturers / etc. So they can slack of…
All of whom have downtime and at least one (if not more) backup. Software developers typically don't (strict adherents to pair programming aside). They also spend company hours getting better at their craft, building professional ties. Just like the article suggests software developers do.
>You should try and spend your time in ways that will benefit you and your employer.
The title says to do less work, but in reality seems you're still doing as much work but rather developing those other skills. Really just improving yourself.
My 2 previous jobs were MSP. Like all MSPs, you wont control your schedule. someone else decides that you only need 30 minutes of your time to work on ticket X. It doesn't matter if that ticket requires you to drive 45 minutes away and then 45 minutes back. You will get chewed out for not completing the work in the allotted time.
You will be required to do all the self-improvement on your own time and own dime.
My current job though is awesome. I have been afforded the time during work to work on open source python projects that are beneficial to the team.
For example, I had recommended we get solarwinds. less than a year later the solarwinds supply chain thing dropped. we dropped solarwinds. I decided screw it. I rebuilt the functionality we wanted in django. Prior to this job I didnt know python. Now I have multiple useful python projects.
I can certainly confirm that this approach has been much better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not at all what the article was about! It was never stated that you should be late or take too much time in doing tasks… it was about using more wisely your time (if the sizing claimed the task needed 5 days to be done and you are done in 2 maybe you could have spent more time thinking about the design or if everything is ok try to using the extra time to generate value in other ways instead of rushing toward…
Who establishes that sizing? I’ve yet to see anyone who can accurately estimate their own tasks let alone someone who can estimate that for others. In agile, I think a great time for reflection is between sprints. Also, I’m super fast but I’ll instead take frequent small breaks in the middle of work (read hacker news, write up documentation etc). There are other times to reflect than between tasks.
Concepts like story points and processes like agile sprints are intended to create a more realistic estimate of the work a team can deliver. The process comes with tradeoffs; it won’t work for everyone. So then it’s up to them to bring it up during retrospectives and decide to either change the process or… not.
It’s important to understand that working on a team means that you just don’t get to have all the nice things that you would working individually. You gotta approach it with that mindset.
I'm glad they talk a good bit about perceptions. That's really what it comes down to at the end of the day. Who cares if you're doing a lot of work or a little work if nobody sees it. I don't know what's expected of me, at least not in an objective way. They apparently want me to go faster. One thing they are looking at is if I'm finishing early and asking for more work. So they are using that as an indicator, which…
One problem with this argument is of course that what is really expected of you, ultimately, is at least what the other guys are delivering, not just a certain amount of work a week.
Even if you are delivering as much or more than others, you also have to be liked.
I think most engineers who always search for tasks and work long hours are dealing with some form of anxiety or imposter syndrome. If management hasn’t brought up any performance issues and you’re anxious about your job you need to talk to someone. You’re on the road to burnout.
If you reach Senior level ranks and continue to suffer from these feelings though…
However, I agree to some extent. I'm especially opposed to the concept that there should be 8 productive hours in a day. I sincerely believe that this is for most people not possible in creative knowledge work, which includes software engineering. So, if you have 5 productive hours of engineering and finished your goal and are in line with expectations, there shouldn't be a need to drain yourself to keep going, but rather spending your extra time on something else like job-related learning is a great way to prevent mental fatigue.
This is especially true as there can be very different "energy distribution" between people. One person can achieve in 4 productive hours what another can in 8. But one works in productive bursts and the other in sustained effort. The first can't just sustain or expand that burst to 8 hours.