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Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

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Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#21
Having spent a few decades in Enteprise digitalisation, both in the public and in the private sector I think this issue is sort of unsolvable. I’m not convinced it’s fully down to managers, but this is obviously the anecdotal and non-tech organisation point of view, because they manage people. What I mean by this is that I’ve had excellent managers who didn’t know half their staff wasn’t doing anything remotely useful. That may sound off to you, but I think the culprit is that a lot of process and management people actually think what they are doing is creating value, despite it being a load of nonsense. I even sort of get why that is, because sometimes the business processes are actually helpful and other times they aren’t, and it’s really hard for non-business-value producers to tell the difference because of how the systems work.

Say you bill clients by the hour and work this directly into your Atlassian ticket system all the way down to the developer level. You can do that, and you can even have a lot of business intelligence to show that you’re doing great, meanwhile if you ask any actual developer off the record they are likely going to tell you that it’s terrible. They will tell you things like how they game the systems instead of producing the best code. They’ll tell you how the senior developers don’t want to help the junior developers, because every minute they spend on non-billable tasks is a minute that will make them look worse on the performance matrix. Now something like that can work, and if can even involve a bunch of process/management people (as well as the BI people) who all feel what they do is useful and have data to show that it is, meanwhile the actual software development is an absolute shit show compared to what it could be if the processes didn’t get in the way. Obviously the flip side is having too little process/management and then having people cruise along doing whatever they want. Though to be fair, in my anecdotal experience you still get more value from a developer department that does this than one that tracks issues by the hour.

Anyway, I’ve never seen anyone come anywhere close to solving it. Personally I tend to try to work in the places that suck the least, and shift if the process part of development becomes too tedious for me. Exploiting that it’s not so easy to find a senior developer. But I’ve honestly given up trying to impact the process/management side of things, and now just flee the ones I dislike.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#22

Just a reminder that lazy managers are the source of burnout for those who are under them. As a manager I can say, there is no easier job than just forwarding requests from directors directly to developers, not planning, and promising crazy deadlines to avoid conflict with higher management. If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more, I have seen so many people becoming managers just to actually avoi…

> If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more In my experience, pay rarely has any kind of correlation to the amount of work being done. I see it merely as a pay for responsibility for the work of those under you or, more succinctly, "being paid to throw yourself under the bus in lieu of anyone you're managing".

Managers usually fire team members rather than take the fall for the team.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more In my experience, pay rarely has any kind of correlation to the amount of work being done. I see it merely as a pay for responsibility for the work of those under you or, more succinctly, "being paid to throw yourself under the bus in lieu of anyone you're managing".

Managers usually fire team members rather than take the fall for the team.

I certainly wouldn't dispute the existence of those managers- I'm thankful to have had some good managers who go to bat for their direct reports.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#25

Just a reminder that lazy managers are the source of burnout for those who are under them. As a manager I can say, there is no easier job than just forwarding requests from directors directly to developers, not planning, and promising crazy deadlines to avoid conflict with higher management. If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more, I have seen so many people becoming managers just to actually avoi…

Pay is generally correlated with accountability, not so much work.

To your point: lazy managers would suffer an accountability hit if something goes wrong with their teams (burnout etc), so that's the incentive for them to manage their teams properly.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#26

Just a reminder that lazy managers are the source of burnout for those who are under them. As a manager I can say, there is no easier job than just forwarding requests from directors directly to developers, not planning, and promising crazy deadlines to avoid conflict with higher management. If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more, I have seen so many people becoming managers just to actually avoi…

Work more means what?

It's about efficiency in terms of performance metrics.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more In my experience, pay rarely has any kind of correlation to the amount of work being done. I see it merely as a pay for responsibility for the work of those under you or, more succinctly, "being paid to throw yourself under the bus in lieu of anyone you're managing".

Managers usually fire team members rather than take the fall for the team.

Bad managers do that. Good managers accept accountability for the failures of their teams. Delegation makes a leader more accountable, not less.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#28
Odds are silly high that this will be a ton of talking past each other in experiences.

Good management is almost certainly situation specific. Such that for a good manager, you also need a good organization. And for that organization, you likely need a certain kind of worker.

Tech work is an odd one as we can't decide if we are general contractors, artists, or line workers. Each will have different quirks on how they work. And, annoyingly, all could probably work at any given task. Especially if the full team and organization is aligned with those quirks.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#29

Just a reminder that lazy managers are the source of burnout for those who are under them. As a manager I can say, there is no easier job than just forwarding requests from directors directly to developers, not planning, and promising crazy deadlines to avoid conflict with higher management. If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more, I have seen so many people becoming managers just to actually avoi…

> If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more Why? Companies don’t pay more for more work. They will try to get away with the least they can pay. Workers should do the same.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#30

Just a reminder that lazy managers are the source of burnout for those who are under them. As a manager I can say, there is no easier job than just forwarding requests from directors directly to developers, not planning, and promising crazy deadlines to avoid conflict with higher management. If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more, I have seen so many people becoming managers just to actually avoi…

> If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more

No, they should deliver more value.

Best managers I had didn't have that much tasks scheduled. They:

1. Made important decisions right.

2. Processed all incoming requests, both from their reports and from outside, swiftly and with full attention.

3. Had enough psychological stamina to say "no" when it's necessary and defend their team from pressure and anxiety.

None of these things require working a lot of hours. Actually, lazy people are better suited to do it properly.

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