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The Frustration with Productivity Culture

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Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#21

Post by jh0486 »

uselesscynicism wrote: post #10
jh0486 wrote: post #9

It's easy to have the wrong mindset around productivity. If an individual thinks that doing more always leads to better results, they're going to have a bad time. I use productivity as a tool to have __more__ personal time and reduce stress. I really think about what I'm doing and what impact it has on my day. From what I've seen, working in large corporate environments, is that people make their own productivity pri…

> There are plenty of less stressful work environments in technology that will pay someone a decent salary and will be much less demanding. There are?! Could you list some examples? I would take a pay cut for fewer responsibilities if I could stay in tech and if it didn't pay like thirty grand, which is what you will make in support. How do I transition from a high stress high pay software engineer to a medium pay lo…

I've only actually worked for one company (1/5) that emphasized productivity and graded people on it. My default answer would be most of them. I would say the majority of tech companies are work/life oriented, especially compared to other industries.

Software Engineers and Data Engineers have one of the best leverage positions in the work force. If you don't like your current employer's practices, find another one.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#22

Post by UncleOxidant »

Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The problem with the entire productivity culture is just how industrialized, bureaucratic and formulaic it is. You read the piece by Newport and there is Henry Ford, the assembly line, 'knowledge work', growth, and so on. Words that don't show up once: freedom, exploration, curiosity, creativity (that does show up once in quotes technically). Everything that makes life interesting is discontinuous and surprising and…

The guy actually poked needles in his eyes because he was curious about how eyes worked.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#23

Post by hnzix »

mikkergp wrote: post #7

Maybe I'm workaholic, but do people like friction in their work? I mean, we should certainly push back against anyone that thinks that we should increase productivity through sheer force of will (or hours, or sacrificing mind and body). But I've always found the meta-work to be the most interesting part of the work. Especially if it means I can spend more time in a state of productive flow.

TFA is essentially saying orgs should have a framework that enables their staff to work smarter not harder, and that the org's ROI is not a coder's problem to solve.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#24

Post by pdimitar »

uselesscynicism wrote: post #10
jh0486 wrote: post #9

It's easy to have the wrong mindset around productivity. If an individual thinks that doing more always leads to better results, they're going to have a bad time. I use productivity as a tool to have __more__ personal time and reduce stress. I really think about what I'm doing and what impact it has on my day. From what I've seen, working in large corporate environments, is that people make their own productivity pri…

> There are plenty of less stressful work environments in technology that will pay someone a decent salary and will be much less demanding. There are?! Could you list some examples? I would take a pay cut for fewer responsibilities if I could stay in tech and if it didn't pay like thirty grand, which is what you will make in support. How do I transition from a high stress high pay software engineer to a medium pay lo…

> How do I transition from a high stress high pay software engineer to a medium pay low stress other kind of technology worker like you have described???

Work literally _anywhere else_ but Sillicon Valley. These jobs are aplenty; they are probably at least 2/3 of all programmer jobs everywhere.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#25

Post by weq »

Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The problem with the entire productivity culture is just how industrialized, bureaucratic and formulaic it is. You read the piece by Newport and there is Henry Ford, the assembly line, 'knowledge work', growth, and so on. Words that don't show up once: freedom, exploration, curiosity, creativity (that does show up once in quotes technically). Everything that makes life interesting is discontinuous and surprising and…

The kings and queeens have turned into the captailists and relgious zealots who espouse ideals of productivity and growth in order to secure your obedience and trap you in debt and gives you no choice but to continue on or give up everything.

By chasing the money you commit yourself playing within the confines of this system.

I instead chase my passion and ive found an employeer who is happy to make those same tradeoffs. I remotely work on a global SaaS product that is scaling quickly, and my backyard is a river next to the ocean where i can immediately connect with physical world. As the tides ebb-and-flow i can see the day changing and feel apart of it. My water cooler is like going on a hike into the mountains. This is what pleases me so i keep it close.

My day is a combination of creativity and nature mixed with technical challenges and stress. No matter your situations, if you are working a growing company you will have competing priorities and therefor stress.

Ive been developing professionally now for 26yrs. 10 years ago i released that i was not going to be happy climbing the ladder in search of more money. More money at the expense of my personal time. More money to manage people. More money to 100x shareholder value... Ive switched markets/verticals from gov to private to startups in search of this balance.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#27

Post by [deleted] »

jh0486 wrote: post #9

It's easy to have the wrong mindset around productivity. If an individual thinks that doing more always leads to better results, they're going to have a bad time. I use productivity as a tool to have __more__ personal time and reduce stress. I really think about what I'm doing and what impact it has on my day. From what I've seen, working in large corporate environments, is that people make their own productivity pri…

[deleted]

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#28

Post by jh0486 »

gandalfgeek wrote: post #19

The problem with "productivity gurus" is that not one of them actually has any accomplishments in an actual specialized domain (other than marketing their stuff). Conversely, as I look at all the accomplished people around me, they've quietly built a mountain of expertise and achievement with cobbled systems held together by spit and glue that a productivity hustler would scoff at.

I can't say that I agree with this. There are the productivity "influencers" who say a lot of things but don't actually live it. There is a high correlation between being a productivity based person and being successful. Most of the leaders you admire are highly productive people and employ practices to increase their productivity, they're just too busy to soapbox about it.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#29

Post by aj7 »

It is absurd to tie productivity to workers. An example suffices. A technician running a pair of horizontal machining centers accomplishes the finish machining of eighty automobile engine blocks in an eight hour shift. Now, he’s replaced by a robot and automatic gauging. There are two fundamental problems. In the technician reference frame, his productivity has suddenly and discontinuously fallen to zero, as he sits in fear at home. From the company reference frame, productivity has increased. I used the term reference frame, from physics, on purpose. The idea of productivity is fundamentally flawed- in our system the two views cannot be reconciled, and the discontinuity in the worker frame is also highly problematic.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#30

Post by abnry »

Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The problem with the entire productivity culture is just how industrialized, bureaucratic and formulaic it is. You read the piece by Newport and there is Henry Ford, the assembly line, 'knowledge work', growth, and so on. Words that don't show up once: freedom, exploration, curiosity, creativity (that does show up once in quotes technically). Everything that makes life interesting is discontinuous and surprising and…

> Yet he also made contributions larger than anyone will ever do by filling up note-taking apps and tracking how much time they spent on their breakfast with a stopwatch.

Part of the problem is that both the low hanging fruit has already been picked and the competition is steeper due to a wealthier society.

If you can't make a societal impact the magnitude of calculus, why not time your breakfast so that the marginal benefit you provide improves society a little while also increasing your status?

I wouldn't say I agree with the above, but I'd push back against the portrayal of the productivity guru being irrational.

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