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The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

annehelen.substack.com

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Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#11

Post by jolux »

ftlio wrote: post #9
endisneigh wrote: post #8

I used to slave away hanging dry wall (lol child labor laws), and then worked as a waiter. Now I work in big tech, and let me tell you the amount of people slacking off during work is incredible. Not that they necessarily should be working themselves to death, but with respect to the article, there's a lot of low hanging fruit. Wall St. is a sort of special type of pathology due to the sheer amount of high frequency,…

I worked in construction/manufacturing as labor, then in a CNC engineering capacity, then as middle management, then at a vendor for manufacturing as a software engineer. All were progressively less work, but my god consumer tech isn’t even close. The people working the hardest seem to be the most keen on useless bureaucracy and bridges to nowhere somehow. I’ll never go near it again. I also don’t think I’ll ever not…

Everywhere is a bit different and companies whose primary product is itself software tend to be a bit more different as well.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#12

Post by cameronh90 »

endisneigh wrote: post #8

I used to slave away hanging dry wall (lol child labor laws), and then worked as a waiter. Now I work in big tech, and let me tell you the amount of people slacking off during work is incredible. Not that they necessarily should be working themselves to death, but with respect to the article, there's a lot of low hanging fruit. Wall St. is a sort of special type of pathology due to the sheer amount of high frequency,…

People definitely slack off a lot in tech, but I think it's because it's a semi-creative process.

Personally, I find if I've got a very clear road ahead of me with few complex decisions, I can just steam ahead, maybe for 12+ hours with few distractions. However, when it gets into the weeds, it's harder to keep going like that. Spend a little while thinking, have a break, read the latest tech news, walk around a bit, come back, think some more - eventually figure out the answer. I could fill that time with busy work, but I personally feel that I find a better solution if I have some room to think.

Procrastination is definitely a thing too, and it can be hard to stay motivated when the feeling of progress is so non-linear and lumpy. It can feel like nothing is being done for weeks at a time, then suddenly everything fits together.

Meanwhile I have no issues doing, say, physical gardening work. Can spend hours digging, weeding, building planters. Lots of time between decisions to think about what you're doing next and simple, linear, visible progress throughout the day.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#13

Post by didibus »

endisneigh wrote: post #8

I used to slave away hanging dry wall (lol child labor laws), and then worked as a waiter. Now I work in big tech, and let me tell you the amount of people slacking off during work is incredible. Not that they necessarily should be working themselves to death, but with respect to the article, there's a lot of low hanging fruit. Wall St. is a sort of special type of pathology due to the sheer amount of high frequency,…

I think to some extent, the actual movement of bodies around for some X hours matters less than the feeling of tiredness afterwards and the level of anxiety and stress you take home.

In that regards, I think that tech jobs are much worse than traditional labor jobs.

At least this is true of myself with my prior labor jobs have been military, construction, and clerk at retail pharmacy. None of those ever left me as exhausted, tired, still anxious/stressed and in this weird state of wanting to just crash on the couch and close my eyes when the day's over. Now maybe it's age, but I feel it is more about the type of work itself and the surrounding expectations.

Everyone I similarly know who've transitioned to work in tech feel the same. I know people who were waiters, musicians, bar tenders, other construction workers, all hate their tech jobs moreso, though also wouldn't go back given the drastic pay cut and the worse leeway in choosing vacation and time-off/sick time.

And that's true even for "slacker" tech worker. Like I too slack off in comparison, if I'm on a construction job, I might work a 10 hour straight, moving constantly, while I really put out 4h to 6h of actually working in tech, but I'm still more tired at the end of the day.

Would be interesting to study the phenomenon.

P.S.: I'm really not comparing it to all jobs, I have no idea what farm work, or manufacturer work is like, mining, oil rigging, paving, etc. Those might leave you more tired and pay less, be strenuous on your health, etc. Just speaking of the ones I specifically mentioned.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#14

Post by Guthur »

"made possible, at least for white men, by the middle-class security of the post-war period"

Typical matriarchy, always men working as a secret cabal. How is it possible to take this stuff seriously with such unsubstantiated nonsense.

For me I'll as soon a possible take myself my own and check out. Because we all have fears ,surprise surprise, and my greatest fear is this matriarchal narrative and what it means for my sons.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#15

Post by orangepurple »

patrck wrote: post #7

> Technology robbed workers’ of what had been highly valued physical knowledge about a job: the precise way to jimmy a stuck gear, the sound a machine makes when something’s about to break. lol. I run IT. Nobody at my workplace knows what I do. Contrary to TFA, my automation gains accrue to myself and my company. It seems difficult to see this as anything but win-win. I get respite and time to think, and my company g…

It's an incredibly impressive phenomenon considering the Internet has been popular for 20-30 years now and you would think people have a clue.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#16

Post by JohnBooty »

endisneigh wrote: post #8

I used to slave away hanging dry wall (lol child labor laws), and then worked as a waiter. Now I work in big tech, and let me tell you the amount of people slacking off during work is incredible. Not that they necessarily should be working themselves to death, but with respect to the article, there's a lot of low hanging fruit. Wall St. is a sort of special type of pathology due to the sheer amount of high frequency,…

    Now I work in big tech, and let me tell you the amount of 
    people slacking off during work is incredible
It's because the whole damn process of developing software in a company bigger than a garage is just a giant mess of productivity-busting bullshit all day, every day.

Meetings, alerts, waiting for CI, waiting for builds to complete, whatever. There's no flow. I experience flow at my job maybe once or twice per month, tops.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#17

Post by JohnBooty »

ftlio wrote: post #9
endisneigh wrote: post #8

I used to slave away hanging dry wall (lol child labor laws), and then worked as a waiter. Now I work in big tech, and let me tell you the amount of people slacking off during work is incredible. Not that they necessarily should be working themselves to death, but with respect to the article, there's a lot of low hanging fruit. Wall St. is a sort of special type of pathology due to the sheer amount of high frequency,…

I worked in construction/manufacturing as labor, then in a CNC engineering capacity, then as middle management, then at a vendor for manufacturing as a software engineer. All were progressively less work, but my god consumer tech isn’t even close. The people working the hardest seem to be the most keen on useless bureaucracy and bridges to nowhere somehow. I’ll never go near it again. I also don’t think I’ll ever not…

I'm interested to know why somebody who's sworn off the tech world is reading HN.

I don't blame you at all, by the way. Tech is insane! Just curious why you're haunting HN, though!

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#18

Post by rufus_foreman »

endisneigh wrote: post #8

I used to slave away hanging dry wall (lol child labor laws), and then worked as a waiter. Now I work in big tech, and let me tell you the amount of people slacking off during work is incredible. Not that they necessarily should be working themselves to death, but with respect to the article, there's a lot of low hanging fruit. Wall St. is a sort of special type of pathology due to the sheer amount of high frequency,…

In the 90's I went from working at a factory stacking 100 pound boxes on pallets 8 hours a day to writing code for money.

At my first corporate programming job, there was a guy in the cube (we still had cubicles at least) next to mine who would spend most of the day doing anything but writing code. He would be on the phone with his wife arguing about some random thing or on the phone yelling at his kids or whatever.

I was astonished. In the factory, there was nothing like that. The machines ran, and you did your part that they hadn't figured out how to automate yet, and if the machines were down, the boss came through and told you to pick up a broom or something like that.

The guy worked an hour a day at most and spent most of the rest of the day on the phone.

He was irreplaceable. In the tiny bit of time that he actually spent working, he wrote Monte Carlo interest rate simulations in C that apparently worked since the financial company I worked for is still solvent given what happened in 2000 and 2008.

I'm like that now. Not the irreplaceable part.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#20

Post by Spooky23 »

endisneigh wrote: post #8

I used to slave away hanging dry wall (lol child labor laws), and then worked as a waiter. Now I work in big tech, and let me tell you the amount of people slacking off during work is incredible. Not that they necessarily should be working themselves to death, but with respect to the article, there's a lot of low hanging fruit. Wall St. is a sort of special type of pathology due to the sheer amount of high frequency,…

Remember with the Ivy League people you’re selecting for intelligent people who can put up with authority and systems. These kids ground through Cello lessons at age 6 or whatever. They plan backup schools in middle school and want to be IBankers when they grow up and most kids want to be astronauts or whatever. They’re trained for that type of work.

Other professions are similar. Pilots need to be independent but suited to strictly internalizing procedures.

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