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Appearing productive in the workplace

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Re: Appearing productive in the workplace

#391

Post by a_victorp »

krptos wrote: post #36
proofofcontempt wrote: post #19

What is described here closely resembles my experience too. My company is full of managers who haven't written code in years. They hired an architect 18 months ago who used AI to architect everything. To the senior devs it was obvious - everything was massively over engineered, yet because he used all the proper terminology he sounded more competent to upper management than the other senior managers who didn't. When…

I've personally witnessed this: 1. My own manager now gives "expert advice and suggestions" using Claude based on his/her incomplete understanding of the domain. 2. Multiple non-technical people within the company are developing internal software tools to be deployed org wide. Hoping such demos will get them their recognition and incentives that they deserve. Management as expected are impressed and approving such PO…

Same, the other day my manager sent a python script to create a jira ticket from some data to a team slack channel... as if no one else could figure that out or ask some LLM (sorry, I needed to vent)

Re: Appearing productive in the workplace

#392

Post by amoss »

Animats wrote: post #215

The OP has an amusing side point - LLMs have automated sucking up to management. There is a large market for that. His main point, though, is this: I have a colleague ... who spent two months earlier this year building a system that should have been designed by someone with formal training in data architecture. He used the tools well, by the standards by which use of the tools is currently measured. He produced a gre…

The details might bury his point rather than illustrate it. The driving theme throughout seems to be that a tool tuned for correct syntax, with deep understanding of semantics will look like a Dunning-Kruger machine. The specific errors that the author's colleague was oblivious to don't add any weight to that general point, they only explain one specific instance. It's classic omega-consistency.

Re: Appearing productive in the workplace

#393

Post by npodbielski »

fhe wrote: post #331
wcfrobert wrote: post #42

> "Requirements documents that were once a page are now twelve. Status updates that were once three sentences are now bulleted summaries of bulleted summaries. Retrospective notes, post-incident reports, design memos, kickoff decks: every artifact that can be elongated is, by people who do not read what they produce, for readers who do not read what they receive." Great article. The "elongation" of workplace artifact…

it was only after I had to manage others that I realized the logic for a lot of these simplistic metrics and rules. they are in place to hold accountable the worst performers. a simple example is when i introduced flexible work hours. it was fine with most people, but there are always a few members that abuse the system. they stretch it to the very limit to what can be interpreted as "flexible". as a manager it posed…

Could not you just say to those few: 'you can't because I do not trust you'? You are the manager after all, your job is not to make them feel good but to make them work.

Re: Appearing productive in the workplace

#394

Post by zkmon »

Dismissing this as just another anti-AI blog could appear a shallow dismissal, but in reality, it 8s mostly the pain of adapting to the change. The writer has certain framework of norms or world where good and bad are well defined, and that he knows what's desirable and what's not.

This is not new. This happened with every new technology or paradigm change. The old norms take a while to adapt to the new world and it involves some pain, emitting writings like this one.

Impersonation by using abilities that are not biologically their own, has been the strategy of dominance for human race. Horse-riding knights with bows and arrows dominated other humans that didn't have horse or arrows.

What are you complaining about? Quality of the software produced? Quality of objectives? Here is the truth. None of that is the root goal. You need to change your assumptions and norms and root goals.

Re: Appearing productive in the workplace

#395

Post by sesm »

proofofcontempt wrote: post #149
danaw wrote: post #129

i have a strong suspicion that the most productive software teams that leverage llms to build quality software will use it for the following: - intelligent autocomplete: the "OG" llm use for most developers where the generated code is just an extension of your active thought process. where you maintain the context of the code being worked on, rather than outsourcing your thinking to the llm - brainstorming: llms can…

I'm with you on all apart from code review. Our team has tried a couple tools. Most of the issues highlighted are either very surface level or non-issues. When it reviews code from the less competent team members, it misses deeper issues which human review has caught, such as when the wrong change has been made to solve a problem which could be solved a better way. Our manager uses it as evidence to affirm his bias t…

Formatting should be handled by deterministic tools with formally specified rules like prettier. This should never be a part if code review.

Re: Appearing productive in the workplace

#396

Post by tovej »

zkmon wrote: post #394

Dismissing this as just another anti-AI blog could appear a shallow dismissal, but in reality, it 8s mostly the pain of adapting to the change. The writer has certain framework of norms or world where good and bad are well defined, and that he knows what's desirable and what's not. This is not new. This happened with every new technology or paradigm change. The old norms take a while to adapt to the new world and it…

Quality of work is not the goal? What is the goal, then? Maximizing profit for the corporation?

I would not want to work anywhere where that is the only goal, even at the employee level. Maximizing profits is not very popular at the moment, for good reason, look at what it's done to the world.

Re: Appearing productive in the workplace

#397

Post by sesm »

zkmon wrote: post #394

Dismissing this as just another anti-AI blog could appear a shallow dismissal, but in reality, it 8s mostly the pain of adapting to the change. The writer has certain framework of norms or world where good and bad are well defined, and that he knows what's desirable and what's not. This is not new. This happened with every new technology or paradigm change. The old norms take a while to adapt to the new world and it…

Are you talking about dominating your peers to get a promotion?

Re: Appearing productive in the workplace

#399

Post by lollobomb »

Fuck, yes. This.

I work in an "AI-first" startup. Being "The Expert", my work has become 90% reviewing the tons of crap that confident BD people now produce, pretending to understand stuff that has never been their domain, proudly showing off their 20-pages hallucinated docs in the general chat as the achievement of their life.

"Heads up folks, I wrote this doc! @OP can you review for accuracy and tone pls?"

And don't hit me with the smartass "just say no", it's not an option. I tried that initially. I have a pretty senior position in the org, I complained to the CTO which I report to, and with the BD managers as well, that I do not have bandwidth to review AI-produced crap. After a couple of weeks, CEO and leadership in an org call spelling out loud that "we should collaborate and embrace AI in all our workflows, or we will be left behind". They even issued requirements to write a weekly report about "how AI improved my productivity at work this week". Luckily I am senior enough to afford ignoring these asks, but I feel bad to all my younger colleagues, which are basically forced to train their replacements. I am not even sure at this point whether this is all part of the nefarious corporate MBA "we can get finally rid of employees" wet dream, whether it's just virtue-signalling to investors, or if CEO and friends genuinely believe their own words. I have the feeling leadership (not only in my org) has gone in AI-autopilot mode and just disappeared to the sunny tropical beaches they always wanted to belong to.

I would happily find another workplace at this point, but you know how the market is right now, and anyway, I have the feeling that this shit is happening pretty much anywhere money is.

Everyone feels smart now, and it's a curse.

God, how I hate this. It's making my life miserable.

Re: Appearing productive in the workplace

#400

Post by operatingthetan »

lollobomb wrote: post #399

Fuck, yes. This. I work in an "AI-first" startup. Being "The Expert", my work has become 90% reviewing the tons of crap that confident BD people now produce, pretending to understand stuff that has never been their domain, proudly showing off their 20-pages hallucinated docs in the general chat as the achievement of their life. "Heads up folks, I wrote this doc! @OP can you review for accuracy and tone pls?" And don'…

Well you can hack the people. Send them on wild goose chases, make them simplify their documents, start quizzing them on the contents of their documents, make them do presentations, the list goes on. Getting hazed for doing shitty work sucks and people will catch on.
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