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Maybe you should do less 'work'

johnwhiles.com

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Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#111

Post by eden-alpha »

jader201 wrote: post #95
toomuchtodo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find better bosses and employers. They are out there.

At the end of the day, even the best bosses care about making money, because that’s what _their_ bosses (i.e. investors) care about. So even if you find a boss/employer that is supportive of “the fun stuff” for a season, that will eventually come to an end.

Honestly that's what anyone employed to a company should care about. Your aim should be delivering value, which sometimes means making long term investments that improve the development environment.

You also should spend a portion time learning as it enables you to create more value over time.

And yes you should take time to get to know your colleagues, take breaks, play ping pong, etc. This helps you refresh yourself and avoid running out of steam.

But the work is meant to create value, hence why you are rewarding with currency you can exchange for things you value.

Manage a positive work life balance and and do the "fun" stuff outside of work. Life is not all work and work is not all of life.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#112

Post by dominotw »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #100
jader201 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, even the best bosses care about making money, because that’s what _their_ bosses (i.e. investors) care about. So even if you find a boss/employer that is supportive of “the fun stuff” for a season, that will eventually come to an end.

I had a boss who became a friend that borrowed me $30k on 24 hours notice, made me a partner at their startup, and was the best man at my wedding. n=1 Rare? Absolutely, but so is finding good people in general. Gather whatever signal you can, and keep rolling the dice, just as you would with friendships and romantic relationships.

except finding a boss is a tedious process vs swiping right.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#113

Post by Msw242 »

jader201 wrote: post #95
toomuchtodo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find better bosses and employers. They are out there.

At the end of the day, even the best bosses care about making money, because that’s what _their_ bosses (i.e. investors) care about. So even if you find a boss/employer that is supportive of “the fun stuff” for a season, that will eventually come to an end.

Companies invest in all sorts of things that don't have an immediately tangible impact.

In terms of developer productivity, it all depends on management's assumptions built into their labor model. If you are paying top of market for "A players" who do "10x," the company might need the few engineers it has to do a huge/unsustainable amount of "focused work"

If management's model depends on high-potential team members upskilling on the job, "the fun stuff" might just be priced in.

The above are absolutely reductive and do not cover all cases.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#114

Post by Apocryphon »

0des wrote: post #106
Apocryphon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given your reading comprehension of the OP, I’m not sure you’d get much out of such a book, seeing as how you missed the point of the article is essentially “work smarter, not harder” and to use excess time at work for career development and continuous learning.

Bless your heart, I hope your day gets better.

Thanks, you too! Maybe yours will become better too after you try rereading the article and getting past its clickbait title and provocative framing.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#115

Post by haliskerbas »

giantg2 wrote: post #102
TameAntelope wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Learn about new tech" is only one of a great many other things. Cultivating your relationships professionally is also "work", as is talking to your customers, reviewing and discussing code, writing about and showing others what you've built, keeping your resume and interview skills sharp, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about work, etc.

Yeah, and most of that similarly doesn't count when it's time for the chips to fall.

I wonder if the same is true for other professions as well? Athletes must have to design their entire lives around a few minutes of competition. Surgeons need to train for years, and all that is evaluated is the patient outcome in the operating room. Lawyers need to train, study, and prepare, and only the court outcome matters.

Maybe this is an unfair parallel, but I cannot see why.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#116

Post by grumple »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #2

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.

> 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've been promoted at every job I've had by working both smart and hard, but never exceeding 40 hours except in very rare exceptional circumstances. Devs have higher IC roles to fill so that helps. But now I get to be miserable as a manager. Be careful what you wish for. And please, be smarter than me so I feel good about you taking my place when I leave.

That said, I don't think many people are productive for more than 20 hours a week for sustained periods and we should all work less.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#118

Post by commandlinefan »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #79
giantg2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the bosses usually only care about work the helps produce value. They might like the fact that you know some new tech that they can use in their latest assignment, but they weren't giving you credit while you were learning it the year before just for fun.

Find better bosses and employers. They are out there.

I've had great bosses, all the way up the chain... but they were all held captive to the "efficiency" measures of the time-tracking system. Everywhere I've ever worked has implemented a methodology that, regardless of what they called it (XP, Scrum, Kanban, whatever) boiled down to: write down everything you're going to do, write down how long it's going to take, and I'm going to measure how accurately you predicted how long it was going to take. And then they start clamping down on the "what you're going to do" part and make sure that everything you're "going to do" aligns with the business goals (that is, has a direct, immediate path to more money). Obviously reading an entire book would never fly under this regime.

It's doubly frustrating because it's always there, and drives so much inefficiency _in the name of_ efficiency.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#119

Post by cinntaile »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #105
cinntaile wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More taxes are a result of earning more and not really from working more although they are usually related, so they still get compensated for that "extra" work.

>More taxes are a result of earning more and not really from working more although they are usually related Even the mythical 10x engineer is not really getting paid 10x more than their same level peers so no not really. So this even furthers the argument. Why bother having 10x the output if you only see a smidge of that productivity as increased income?

We're not talking about being more productive in the same number of hours. If you earn $2000 you pay more taxes than if you earn $1000, even if you work double the hours to earn $2000. So you still get rewarded for your extra time.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#120

Post by jhgb »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #110
jhgb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Working too hard just decreases that ratio because work hours increase while money stays constant I assume this may hold for the US, but not for many other countries. For example in my country the hourly rate for overtime hours is higher by law. Your hourly compensation decrease while working longer would only decrease if you were an external contractor paid a fixed amount of money for completion of a specific task…

We aren't really talking about overtime though, which also exists in the US, but the amount of output during a normal 8 hour day. You might get paid somewhat more than a peer for putting out 2x the output but there are massive diminishing returns.

What I was responding to literally talked about "work hours increase". I don't see how you can have "work hours increase" and simultaneously keep the same "normal 8 hour day". That sounds contradictory to me.
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