I am going to dig up this gem from the old days:
Richard Stallman has rider... (see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3159210 )
What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
41–50 of 77 posts
Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
#42[flagged]
There's a flag link on the submission.
Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
#43Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
#44> In fact, remote and hybrid employees score higher than full-time office workers on all elements of the employee experience, including on culture-adjacent measures like sense of belonging at work and value of relationships with coworkers.
This is being 'phrased' as though full time workers aren't experiencing any or their experience doesn't count. But looking at the charts and how close many of the results are, it appears more that the experience is split across the three types of workers, with remote only just edging out the others.
Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
#45These were popular at my workplace maybe seven years ago, and while I was into the idea at first, IMO it was impractical most of the time. Turns out it's a pretty unreasonable burden to place on people that they should read and follow instructions in a document in order to communicate with someone and to personalize their work approach for every person they interact with. The main context these make sense in is when…
Maybe they only make sense, when they are really simple like:
"is it ok to message me on the weekend"
Mine would be:
"message anytime, don't expect response outside work hours, but can happen"
"only call in emergencies"
Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suspect the real purpose is a form of personal marketing. It's going to end up chock full of resume-style "I am a bright and receptive person, able to communicate well with people at all levels. I use my own initiative and I am flexible in my approach to work duties" boilerplate. Anyone who provides useful information, eg "I'm at my best in the mornings, try to catch me then, oh and dumb down the technical language a…
Why is anyone honestly providing useful information a moron? At least if the "PUM" is in private context.
As mentioned, people have an incentive to lie. Who's going to write "I just fake being online the first and last 2 hours every day, so don't bother" or "I never understood our database" or "I get emotional all the time" or "I reverse manage"?
People will say they welcome direct feedback and would love to have focus time, what else?
Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
#47Oh no, not this again. I'm not sure I could muster the arrogance to write such a document about myself... and then expect people to read it. The suggested examples of what the document could contain are bizarre and yet also weirdly simple & obvious... "I am a sponge. I’ll take more content earlier rather than a formal presentation" "Please give me the bad news before I hear it from somewhere else" "Be direct. Tell me…
"I have no hobbies listed on the list of hobbies approved by HR."
"I do not sponsor HR gym bunnies swimming for charity."
"I am not interested in cycle-to-work tax relief schemes."
"I will not eat vegan food just because HR found our that it was the new thing they should beat employees with."
"Use clear, well structured English to communicate with me."
"Incentivising me with free beers at the manager's favourite pub is not going to work."
Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
#48The HR-mandated version of "Let's hold hands and tell each other a secret."
Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
#49This would be better suited for volunteer situations like unpaid open source work, where people have their personalities out in the open and don't conform to externally imposed expectations. If you're employed in a company or organization, you have to conform your personality to their manual, modulo reasonable wiggle room. That's it. Nobody has the time to read N different manuals, and then ponder over interpretation…
> If you're employed in a company or organization, you have to conform your personality to their manual, modulo reasonable wiggle room. That's it.
Quite right! We have enough abstractions on reality already.
Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)
#50Alternatively everyone can just be grown up and behave appropriately in the work environment because that's part of the contract you signed.