Pretending to work is self-degrading. Fix whatever authority problem incentives sending out false signals instead.
Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
101–110 of 151 posts
Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
#102Alternative ;) https://terminal.news
Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s an unpopular opinion but given more than a decade of remote work experience I’d say: yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average). The „on average” is key however. I’d say that most of the people don’t understand the cost of remote work until it hits them and simply not all can bear that cost. It’s not like people are unwilling (occasionally you can find slackers) but it’s more often thing…
> Then there’s self-drive requirement that can easily be extinguished It is 99% extinguished by low pay though. Low pay means person can't afford better living environment, can't afford leaving toxic partner, can't afford to go out or hobbies which leads to depression. > Efficient teams are more difficult to create when there is no space for people to bond over non-work (team pizza/social events) That has nothing to…
Burn out is hard to manage; its something that happens in the cruisy 20-something hour a week job as well as the 80+ hour pressure cooker. Probably not to the same degree sure, but its not the only thing going on here.
Its a whole lot more sustainable if you can build an identity around "here is my team, we are building {___}", and its a lot easier to get there if you meet in person frequently.
Genuinely clear objectives can also be a great asset here; but I find that clarity doesnt scale. When Ive been a contractor working on projects measured in weeks or months with small teams, full remote is easy. At corporate gigs where the thing you are doing might be several abstraction layers from a customer; its harder to answer "why are we doing this?". In the second case being able to share in person is important; because its not just the work its the context and other people doing it thats grounding.
That motivation brings efficiency; at least for myself.
Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
#104I worked one place where a co-worker advised me to move my workstation against the wall so my screen could be seen to the rest of the space. That way the boss could walk by and tell if I'm just surfing the web or working.
Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
#105Pretending to work is self-degrading. Fix whatever authority problem incentives sending out false signals instead.
100% agree. When you need this tool it is time to look for a job at another company.
Maybe it is very useful for the movie industry or something.
Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
#106I run i3wm (poorly :P). Does anyone know whether it would it be possible to trick i3lock (or something similar) into showing the output of this "tool" instead of a static image? Would be a fun look, with the added bonus of some colleagues potentially being tricked into thinking they have an opportunity to mess with my machine. :D
There are screen-locking programs that don't hide what's on the screen (for example `alock` and `xtrlock`). So you can use one of those in a script that also launches this tool.
Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
#107Years ago I made up a script that would incrementally output from random files in a given directory at configurable speeds. Then I'd run a few instances of the script in a bunch of tmux panes so I could make my second monitor look eternally "busy."
I was _actually_ busy enough, and the cubicle walls were high enough then, that I virtually never used it as a real "boss key." But it's fun to make this kind of thing.
Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
#108This reminds me of my time as a professor at a business school, where I worked in an open space with my screen visible to everyone. I spent a lot of time coding, so my IDE was always in plain sight.
Yet, it was only when I had the terminal open, running a few basic commands, that people would stop by and say—impressed—"Oh, I didn’t realize you could code."
Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't help but think that there must be some arbitrage opportunity there: massive companies hire top notch engineers and all make them waste their time in (commute to/from) offices. What if someone comes along and is like "I'm going to provide the exact same service, but without offices and everybody works from home". That company would have a competitive edge, because: people from the established company would hav…
> Does the fact that WFH is not a thing mean that in the real world, for most people, coming to the office IS actually more efficient? Or does this just need more time? I'm honestly not sure, but I've sure been tempted to start a competitor to very silly old fashion "you shall come here and sit at a computer where I can see you" type companies. Sadly yes. I was grumbling about finding a solution to a problem and a co…
Ok but don't you have engineering wide slack/teams channels where these discussions can happen? If I think to my self 'man this is really hard to achieve for whatever company specific reason' I don't just stew on it for days by myself.
Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't help but think that there must be some arbitrage opportunity there: massive companies hire top notch engineers and all make them waste their time in (commute to/from) offices. What if someone comes along and is like "I'm going to provide the exact same service, but without offices and everybody works from home". That company would have a competitive edge, because: people from the established company would hav…
That’s an unpopular opinion but given more than a decade of remote work experience I’d say: yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average). The „on average” is key however. I’d say that most of the people don’t understand the cost of remote work until it hits them and simply not all can bear that cost. It’s not like people are unwilling (occasionally you can find slackers) but it’s more often thing…
> That’s an unpopular opinion but given more than a decade of remote work experience I’d say: yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average).
Thankfully that's just an opinion, and the stats bear out the opposite.
Regretfully, managers and workers who want to RTO will force us to do so regardless.