Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Making 20% Time Work

begriffs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 142 posts

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#111

Post by bostonpete »

sqldba wrote: post #68

Wow I would absolutely hate this. I'm not doing 20% time to trend shit for YOU on GitHub so that YOU can feel like you're doing something as a manager; intruding on and micromanaging "free time" until it's anything but "free". I'm doing it to answer a burning question I have about something and do some exploration whether YOU think it's useful or not. And before you whinge and bitch that I'm there to serve the compan…

> don't fucking act like its free time

Do companies act like it's "free" time? My impression was that it's intended to be free time to focus on projects of your choosing, but still things that will (or may) benefit the company. This is a far cry from free time to work on personal endeavors which you seem to be describing.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#112

Post by its2complicated »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #4

I've never met anyone who has this luxury, quick poll: Do you have 20% time?

Not 20%, but I got the manager to give us 2 hours every Friday. I guess that would be 5% time. I was doing C# enterprise work at the time, so I would use those 2 hours on totally different stuff; like brushing up on C++, or dicking around with Perl.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#114

Post by calibraxis »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #81
sqldba wrote: post #68

Wow I would absolutely hate this. I'm not doing 20% time to trend shit for YOU on GitHub so that YOU can feel like you're doing something as a manager; intruding on and micromanaging "free time" until it's anything but "free". I'm doing it to answer a burning question I have about something and do some exploration whether YOU think it's useful or not. And before you whinge and bitch that I'm there to serve the compan…

I also had the same initial reaction, but also keep in mind that these guys are paying your salary. You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation. You're still being paid for it, and it's not like you're being asked to wor…

> You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. [...] If you want a lot of free time, then you can find a part-time freelance job and work from home.

Fully agree with the premise — you are a servant meant to obey orders. But there's another conclusion: try to set aside time for freedom regardless of what Big Boss says.

For example, everything is negotiable: how much they surveil or micro-command you. Or if you consider yourself an adult, you simply do what you think best, with whatever expedient little tricks to keep the local bureaucrat happy.

(Obviously, this advice is not intended for those who identify with the boss. Most know the ways the deck is stacked against them, for example bosses colluding to weaken their bargaining power, or simply being born in a time in history where they must be servants to have a decent life.)

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#115

Post by moron4hire »

I have 80% time, i.e. I only spend about 20% of my time on my clients.

To hell with this wage employment bullshit. Keep your productivity and the fruits thereof for yourself. Don't give them away for a pittance to an employer, who probably also made you sign an agreement that they get to take anything you make, whether you made it on their time or not.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#116

Post by fibo »

I already do that, and My boss is aware. When it is necessary to fix things quickly or do scouting or in general problem solving your time invested returns, but you are faster.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#117

Post by sqldba »

bostonpete wrote: post #111
sqldba wrote: post #68

Wow I would absolutely hate this. I'm not doing 20% time to trend shit for YOU on GitHub so that YOU can feel like you're doing something as a manager; intruding on and micromanaging "free time" until it's anything but "free". I'm doing it to answer a burning question I have about something and do some exploration whether YOU think it's useful or not. And before you whinge and bitch that I'm there to serve the compan…

> don't fucking act like its free time Do companies act like it's "free" time? My impression was that it's intended to be free time to focus on projects of your choosing, but still things that will (or may) benefit the company. This is a far cry from free time to work on personal endeavors which you seem to be describing.

It's not like you're digging a hole in your backyard. It's meant to be (or should be) providing time to do something outside of management's understanding of what's important.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#118

Post by sqldba »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #81
sqldba wrote: post #68

Wow I would absolutely hate this. I'm not doing 20% time to trend shit for YOU on GitHub so that YOU can feel like you're doing something as a manager; intruding on and micromanaging "free time" until it's anything but "free". I'm doing it to answer a burning question I have about something and do some exploration whether YOU think it's useful or not. And before you whinge and bitch that I'm there to serve the compan…

I also had the same initial reaction, but also keep in mind that these guys are paying your salary. You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation. You're still being paid for it, and it's not like you're being asked to wor…

I don't "serve" anyone.

I provide my time in exchange for compensation and I do what I think is important with a little grey area that I also join in (for example, meetings).

Ultimately though I decide what I'm working on and this usually works because I'm in touch with what's going on, I'm good at my job, and I want to keep it. However I still spend most of my time working on my own ideas of what's important and how I'm going to achieve it. This works for me and it works for the managers who are strong enough to let go of micromanagement.

If the company feels that this goes wrong, or is out of touch with what they need, or simply (as has been the case once before) agree with exactly what I'm doing but feel the need to repeatedly "take control" and put structure on what I'm doing already, then this is fine and we can part ways.

But I don't go to work to serve, follow, or otherwise be a slave to others. I would rather kill myself than live feeling like that even for 8.5 hours a day. No.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#119

Post by ilostmykeys »

meric wrote: post #40
ilostmykeys wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like have a life, do your laundry, tidy up your place, that sort of thing? What does it have to do with work supporting 20% of your time for coding something of interest to you or learning a new language/framework?

I do all of those things and code something of interest to me and my company has no 20% time. I understand, you'd like more time to do those things, but time when we get to do whatever we want is called a day off.

That's a terrible attitude.

Re: Making 20% Time Work

#120

Post by sqldba »

this__guy wrote: post #108
nathan_f77 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also had the same initial reaction, but also keep in mind that these guys are paying your salary. You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation. You're still being paid for it, and it's not like you're being asked to wor…

You cannot structure or manage idea time. Actually a lot of successful open source projects were started by single persons in college. Many sponsored or managed projects progress slowly, because management kills off all creativity and drive.

Absolutely. I'm an administrator but I do a lot of programming to automate parts of my work.

Some people fail to understand what a creative engagement that is. I'm not saying my code is fantastic or anything but it is an extremely emotionally driven art.

Some people only understand clocking in, working 8.5 hours, then going home. To me, I might be working 16 hours 4 days in a row to fix one function in some code I use that is driving me crazy; and if I can't then I'm just not going to be able to do my job anymore.

On the other hand once it's fixed it's one of the best tools the company has (in that it's doing something that few others in the industry are doing, even if... nobody except me is using or knows about it... because it's managing an aspect of my work and it's not important to them HOW I do it).

Post reply on HN