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

businessinsider.com

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

#41

Post by marcelr »

snide wrote: post #19

Maybe I'm missing a core piece from this article, but it leaves out quite a bit of agency from the employee. I never understand pieces like this that rail against employers, but also seem to cast the employees in such a helpless light. If you're stuck in a situation where you're not getting great feedback on what to work on, that seems like a great time to just build things and experiment on your own. Do it within th…

You must see that this is _a ton_ more work, that could easily conflict with other team interests. Let alone the more typical experience of getting a scolding for not sticking to the agenda (which I've experienced many times).

All this work that could be better directed by someone who has a bigger picture view & vision for how teams should work together -- good management.

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

#42

Post by noirbot »

blitz_skull wrote: post #33
taeric wrote: post #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…

> for a good manager, you also need a good organization False. Being a good manager is aligned with being a good leader, which is 100% down to the person who is the manager. Sure you may not have an "effective team" without a good organization, but as a manager your job is to make the team succeed, and if you're following the laws of leadership, it has nothing to do with your organization.

The difficulty becomes that, in a bad organization, a good manager can easily get stuck unable to both be a good leader to their team and be a good manager as seen by the organization. I've had multiple managers fired/reassigned because they were leading the team well in a fractured organization, but because they weren't prioritizing the things that upper management wanted over the objections of their teams.

If what the team wants to do to succeed is at odds with what the organization thinks it wants, the manager often can't square that circle.

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

#43

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Ultimately "fake work" is work disconnected from the bottom line or profit goals of the company, since this is capitalism and that's the ultimate measure and purpose of a corporation.

It's not much of a surprise that Google, Meta, etc. are full of this kind of thing, because they have embarrassing quantities of ad revenue, and yet also a burning "need" to employ in areas almost entirely disconnected from ads (for now).

I won't dispute that these companies can and should do these speculative or non-revenue-bound things. But you can see how they go off the rails very easily, and this is what ultimately ties back to the article's main point about lazy management.

In the end responsibility, shared vision, and clear goals are key. And I'm not entirely convinced that those things "scale up" to the organization size and sheer insane revenue-firehose of FAANG type companies.

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

#44

Post by diego_moita »

> But based on conversations with over 30 people involved in the tech industry, including current and former tech employees,

I do accept the writer hypothesis that there are lazy managers but "30 people said so" as an evidence of anything is just very lazy.

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

#45

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

snide wrote: post #19

Maybe I'm missing a core piece from this article, but it leaves out quite a bit of agency from the employee. I never understand pieces like this that rail against employers, but also seem to cast the employees in such a helpless light. If you're stuck in a situation where you're not getting great feedback on what to work on, that seems like a great time to just build things and experiment on your own. Do it within th…

> If you're stuck in a situation where you're not getting great feedback on what to work on, that seems like a great time to just build things and experiment on your own.

Such projects could certainly lead to all sorts of career successes... if someone high above you recognizes the value of the project as measured my immediate marketability and profit. But in the other 99.99% of cases, it just looks bad.

"The rest of everyone is over here doing real work, but snide's over in the corner fucking around with someone no one told him to work on. Does he think he's better than everyone else?"

With rare exception, it's just not a good look.

To even begin to guess which projects might be that 0.01% that would get you noticed in a good way often requires having worked there years anyway, wheedling yourself into conversations your pay grade has no right to be in. And if you can do that, why work on the project at all? Wheedling itself is a far more certain path to career success than Thomas-Edison-ing some killer app.

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

#46

Post by moffkalast »

falloutx wrote: post #8

This article itself represents fake work. Remember what keeps you employed, if we only did necessary things, none of us would be employed.

That is assuming anyone able to fire you actually knows the things you do are unnecessary.

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

#47

Post by Clubber »

codesnik wrote: post #34
ryoshu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'd love to see an example of such an accepted accountability at least once in my life.

>I'd love to see an example of such an accepted accountability at least once in my life.

I think that's the point, you wouldn't see it. If a good manager gets unreasonably or unfairly reamed by his boss, he's probably not gonna tell his team about it, because it would be a blow to morale. If it was indeed the team's dysfunction, he'd try to improve it.

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

#48

Post by say_it_as_it_is »

Great employees facilitate bad managers by simply being themselves and doing great work. Managers just collect the karma for being there. They also interview for other positions staking a claim to work they had nothing to do with. They play great politics, though, with peers and upward.

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

#50

Post by blitz_skull »

noirbot wrote: post #42
blitz_skull wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for a good manager, you also need a good organization False. Being a good manager is aligned with being a good leader, which is 100% down to the person who is the manager. Sure you may not have an "effective team" without a good organization, but as a manager your job is to make the team succeed, and if you're following the laws of leadership, it has nothing to do with your organization.

The difficulty becomes that, in a bad organization, a good manager can easily get stuck unable to both be a good leader to their team and be a good manager as seen by the organization. I've had multiple managers fired/reassigned because they were leading the team well in a fractured organization, but because they weren't prioritizing the things that upper management wanted over the objections of their teams. If what…

No doubt. This is the dichotomy of leadership. The alternative is don't become a manager in a bad organization. But barring that solution, your only alternative is to grind on both sides of the wall until you've either got breakthrough... or you get fired.

It's not a good answer, but it lines up with the reality I've experienced.

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