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Fuck being productive

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Re: Fuck being productive

#351

Post by listenallyall »

mcv wrote: post #321
listenallyall wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He stated "administrative stuff" -- not "shops". Stuff that's already open on the weekend isn't an issue. And are people willing to take a 20% pay cut? I would doubt many people could afford (or wish) to do so. The entire premise is absurd, which is what I was pointing out.

You already took that 20% pay cut. Our pay hasn't gone up with our productivity in decades. According to Keynes, we should have been working 15 hours per week by now. We're not, because we're not reaping the rewards of our work. It's all gone to the rich. That is the big thing we need to reverse. I'm working 4 days a week, and that's working very well for me. So is my wife. So is my brother, and are several of my fri…

Of course you're entitled to a better life, a great life. The "absurd" part comes from the expectation that an employer is just going to wake up one day and decide you don't need to come in on Fridays (or whatever 5th day is). Perhaps you can arrange a 4x10 schedule or, as I stated, take a pay cut -- that's great if it works for you and for the employer (or maybe you don't have an employer). But the OP was seeking a "free lunch" -- less work with no reduction in pay. Further, the OP's expectation of how the 5th day would be spent is, in fact, absurd. Americans already have a lot of free time, and most of it is spent watching television: https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2019/19_0017.htm, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/heres-how-americans-spe...

Re: Fuck being productive

#352

Post by MrDresden »

phone8675309 wrote: post #317
pdimitar wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very romantic, until you realize that nowadays working on what you like won't even pay your rent + utilities + food. I am beginning to think we need HN for non-privileged people. A lot of "insights" on this forum come off as extremely deluded and living in a very positive bubble. Now tell me, how do I get a huge break from programming while never losing a penny from my income? "Live within my means" would be your res…

Some people never watched Dirty Jobs and you can see it in posts like the grandparent. Having a job you clock into, giving your best effort at that job, stopping work at 5 PM, and then going home and do the things you're passionate about that don't pay the bills is the way that the vast majority of people live. It's only the rich and deluded that think that this isn't the reality for most people, and that's because t…

I think you are overlooking how in this modern economy many people do in fact go and work their next job at 17:30 rather than going home to relax.

Dirty Jobs may show some some clocking in and out of only one job and then going home to relax but as a television show that is highly selective of what it decides to show it is not a representative window into how the mass amount of people on this planet live (just like HN is not such a window either).

Simply reading the local news tells me more about the economic hardships of the common worker than a reality tv and internet forums ever could. And those hardships are harsh in many cases.

Re: Fuck being productive

#353

Post by overgrownzygote »

notabee wrote: post #73
88913527 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you care about the products, the emotional investment in your work might propel your income, which is the reason why you're working in the first place, so ostensibly a follow-on goal of that might be to raise your income.

Caring just as often leads to burnout, since many people wind up dealing with organizational dysfunction. If you truly care and the resultant product gets butchered due to politics or simply killed on an executive's whim despite having promise, that's going to affect you longer term and could make you less efficient or unable to dedicate good effort in the future, especially if that cycle is repeated several times. G…

I’m surprised I had to scroll this far to see this.

I think most folks want to care about their jobs and the default is having a healthy level of investment. But especially in larger companies, it’s so easy to get burned by workplace politics or leaders just not seeing things the same way you do — just as you said.

Emotional disinvestment in work is a defensive mechanism. Honestly, it feels like the two camps in this thread are almost talking past each other. Yes, it’s good to be invested in your work — it’s better for your emotional/existential health and good for your career. On the other hand, investment being a net good for an employee is hugely dependent on your work environment.

While one could argue that the right thing to do if you feel you can’t be invested is to leave, and I generally agree that leaving is the only real long-term solution, there are also a million reasons why it might not in the short term.

Re: Fuck being productive

#354

Post by [deleted] »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #325
phone8675309 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people never watched Dirty Jobs and you can see it in posts like the grandparent. Having a job you clock into, giving your best effort at that job, stopping work at 5 PM, and then going home and do the things you're passionate about that don't pay the bills is the way that the vast majority of people live. It's only the rich and deluded that think that this isn't the reality for most people, and that's because t…

Honestly this is something I find working as a software developer in offices... Many of my peers have never worked shitty jobs. I've worked fast food, I've worked retail (during the launch of the Wii, even, which was an insane time), I've detailed cars, I've worked in a call center. That's just what I had to do to avoid being buried under student debt. I think a lot of people working in offices never had this experie…

[deleted]

Re: Fuck being productive

#355

Post by jonfw »

Alupis wrote: post #227
jonfw wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caring about the product is not good for your career. You should care about your career, and most of the time, that means that progressing the product should be your goal. However, when the interests of yourself and your company diverge, don't get stuck holding the bag.

If you care about your work-product, and can find a way to be passionate about it, then everything else comes very easy. That includes being noticed, promoted, etc. Passionate does not necessarily imply loving absolutely every aspect of the job, it just means you've found some aspect you really enjoy and are excited to spend some time on. People who work solely to advance their careers are generally not awesome to wo…

When the interests of the company and yourself are aligned, absolutely!

It is easy though to fall into the trap of making improvements for the sake of improvements, without any real visibility of why that matters to the business. That’s when you can work hard and stagnate at the same time

Re: Fuck being productive

#356

Post by notabee »

overgrownzygote wrote: post #353
notabee wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caring just as often leads to burnout, since many people wind up dealing with organizational dysfunction. If you truly care and the resultant product gets butchered due to politics or simply killed on an executive's whim despite having promise, that's going to affect you longer term and could make you less efficient or unable to dedicate good effort in the future, especially if that cycle is repeated several times. G…

I’m surprised I had to scroll this far to see this. I think most folks want to care about their jobs and the default is having a healthy level of investment. But especially in larger companies, it’s so easy to get burned by workplace politics or leaders just not seeing things the same way you do — just as you said. Emotional disinvestment in work is a defensive mechanism. Honestly, it feels like the two camps in this…

Yes, I think that the folks who haven't been burned like that before have either not been in the industry for very long, or they have been very, very fortunate in their work environments. Having a supportive work environment that rewards passion is something that everyone who puts in solid work effort deserves, but unfortunately much of the industry works like slash and burn agriculture: exploiting, exhausting, and then moving on.

Re: Fuck being productive

#357

Post by kortilla »

m_rpn wrote: post #295
kortilla wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m telling you from experience as a manager that this is wrong. People who take ownership and initiative for the things they work on get quickly promoted. If they don’t, there is usually some other issue (difficultly to work with) explicitly holding them back. I have seen many otherwise great engineers take the mindset of “I’m paid to do X so I don’t care about making sure X is the right thing” and they just sit at…

In my opinion the problem is this: company wants you to "show you are performing at an higher level" before giving you higher pay or a promotion, but this can take years in a mid to big sized company, and even performing at 200% your peers doesn't guarantee you get what you deserve, since most of the promotions in structured companies are not tied to performance whatsoever, but to networking and being supporters of y…

What if I were to tell you performing at 200% is not a good way to get a promotion?

I will promote the person with regular output and an eye for outcomes, doing the right thing, improving process, etc over the one who just blindly runs at full steam all of the time.

If you think you’re at 200% and not getting recognized, step back and evaluate how much it’s really helping.

If you think it is, write out the argument you would make to get a 100% raise and try to negotiate it. You will likely receive candid feedback about how your grinding is not actually important for the team or the company. At that point you can cut back your push on doing X as fast as possible and start to focus on how and why you do X in the first place.

Re: Fuck being productive

#358

Post by laratied »

mulmen wrote: post #155
appleaday1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is kind of slowly imploding. It's going through a lot of crisis currently. Housing is one of the biggest ones, for example I am a housing activist and trying to do something actively about the housing crisis happening in Canada.

Can you give an example of what actually happened up there? And what you are doing? I hear rumors (China!) but you seem much more knowledgeable on the topic. I live down in Seattle so I'm curious how similar the situations are.

[dead]

Re: Fuck being productive

#359

Post by kortilla »

lisasays wrote: post #333
kortilla wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m telling you from experience as a manager that this is wrong. People who take ownership and initiative for the things they work on get quickly promoted. If they don’t, there is usually some other issue (difficultly to work with) explicitly holding them back. I have seen many otherwise great engineers take the mindset of “I’m paid to do X so I don’t care about making sure X is the right thing” and they just sit at…

People who take ownership and initiative for the things they work on get quickly promoted. I can tell you from experience as a human being -- and having given many, many friends a shoulder to cry on over the years, in regard to this very issue: that this is of course what management always says in regard to how things work. But the reality on the ground (beneath the confident pronouncements, and fake glassdoor review…

>Right, and it's always, always, always on the employee side -- is what you're basically saying.

No it’s not. Jumping to negative conclusions and engaging in bad faith definitely is a way to get passed over though.

There are lots of reasons, both managerial issues and employee issues, for someone to get passed over despite having the right mindset. My point wasn’t that it’s a guaranteed path to getting promotions. My point is that “not giving a shit” is nearly a guaranteed path to being passed over.

Re: Fuck being productive

#360

Post by therealdrag0 »

lisasays wrote: post #333
kortilla wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m telling you from experience as a manager that this is wrong. People who take ownership and initiative for the things they work on get quickly promoted. If they don’t, there is usually some other issue (difficultly to work with) explicitly holding them back. I have seen many otherwise great engineers take the mindset of “I’m paid to do X so I don’t care about making sure X is the right thing” and they just sit at…

People who take ownership and initiative for the things they work on get quickly promoted. I can tell you from experience as a human being -- and having given many, many friends a shoulder to cry on over the years, in regard to this very issue: that this is of course what management always says in regard to how things work. But the reality on the ground (beneath the confident pronouncements, and fake glassdoor review…

What Kortilla said matches my experience at a few companies. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there are different/worse ecosystems out there. Also just working harder doesn’t guarantee anything, which some employees misunderstand—communicate with your manager! You need to work on the right things and understand leveling expectations and promo cadences, and of course your manager is hugely important.
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