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Doing nothing at work

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Re: Doing nothing at work

#61

Post by supriyo-biswas »

asdff wrote: post #54
macNchz wrote: post #48

I’ve had a half-written blog post in this vein for a while now using a fantasy RPG analogy: if you play a character that uses mana in any of these games, you’ll learn fairly quickly that using it all up all the time on trivial battles and running around empty leaves you with none when you genuinely need it. Your mental energy deployed at work is not so dissimilar: keeping some in the tank gives you the option to depl…

One thing I've noticed myself, if you are not sufficiently challenged for a while it can be extremely difficult to surmount the next challenge. Peak "abilities" for me in whatever categories has always been when I had enough work in front of me to just chug away like a machine, and enough trust where I didn't need to stop and constantly explain myself but could just work uninterrupted towards the goal. Skills would g…

At my previous job, the most productive time was when I was serving my notice after resignation, I got 6 months worth of work done in two. Without all the status updating meetings, "quick questions", overtime due to incidents, and whatnot, I got a lot done.

It was a bit ironic though, as most of the work I did during that time was ultimately shelved, as I can tell by looking up public DNS entries, probably due to other people exiting or the team being reorganized.

Re: Doing nothing at work

#62

Post by gib444 »

NoSalt wrote: post #33

I've been "Doing nothing" at work for a couple of weeks now, and it's freaking me out. Yes, I have asked for tasking, but the guy in charge is ... I just don't know.

As someone who's been there and let their skills atrophy and had his career slide backwards...act on that freaking-you-out feeling sooner rather than later.

Re: Doing nothing at work

#63

Post by casey2 »

Software allows clever people in a lucky position to benefit from the massive amount of work people have done before them. You should remain discipline so that when you do get your opportunity you don't add on to the garbage pile.

Re: Doing nothing at work

#64

Post by bumby »

wiseowise wrote: post #58

> I also believe that being too helpful leaves you vulnerable to predators. Tech companies are full of people who want to extract uncompensated work from software engineers4. This is different from work that arrives via normal channels, and for which you’re compensated by promotions, bonuses (and just your normal salary). I’m talking about work that arrives via backchannels, from people who don’t have the ability or…

Eh, I think it depends on how engaged your supervisor is. One of the last people I want to work with is the “it’s not my job” guy. I want to work with people who see a problem and offer a solution, whether it’s in their job description or not.

If you’re not being recognized for your work that’s a leadership problem. Stiff arming work feels like a way towards an ossified lumbering work culture.

Re: Doing nothing at work

#65

Post by gnunicorn »

12_throw_away wrote: post #53

Sigh. This article is obviously completely correct, but I don't think the people who actually need to read it will care. Running anything at constant 100% utilization means you are going to be working in crisis mode all of the time. Even in factory labor, the Toyota Way is several decades old now, and it involves making sure everyone has at least a little breathing room to step back and think about what they're doing…

Yeah, same sentiment here. I agree that some more people need to be told to relax a little in our field, but on the other side, the product and project managers are constantly looking to ensure maximum utility, especially in startups and high pressure environments. And looking around with the large number of companies that laid off people in the last year or two, I see fewer devs having the choice to push back when that happens. It really reads like the author is in the comfortable position of a staff or principle engineer without a direct manager and gets to decide what their day and week looks like and pick what they work on. I am afraid fewer and fewer have that luxury...

Re: Doing nothing at work

#66

Post by bumby »

xnx wrote: post #32
hilariously wrote: post #31

If you want to collapse just run a system at 100% for baseline, there's no slack, there's no capacity to meet new demands, you're just running a permanent failure mode if there's any perturbation in the system.

Efficiency is the enemy of resiliency.

This is only true if you define efficiency as the inverse of redundancy. Sometimes efficiency is gained by reducing waste, not redundancy

Re: Doing nothing at work

#68

Post by hilariously »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #52
hilariously wrote: post #31

If you want to collapse just run a system at 100% for baseline, there's no slack, there's no capacity to meet new demands, you're just running a permanent failure mode if there's any perturbation in the system.

Except ... the collapse never happens. Once your engineers burn out or age out you just hire fresh meat and the cycle repeats. The issue I have with these types of articles (and books like Peopleware / Slack) is they never provide any actual metrics that may convince the beancounters to try a different approach.

Your systems just continue working at full capacity when all your engineers burn out and you hire new people who know nothing? Huh, that's a new one to me.

Re: Doing nothing at work

#69

Post by bauldursdev »

hintymad wrote: post #35

> Second, preventing or mitigating an incident early (even by just knowing the right feature flag to turn off) can save huge amounts of money: both immediate lost revenue during the incident and future lost revenue from customers who would have pulled their business or refused to sign pending contracts. Not to be sarcastic but just to offer an observation: in a sufficiently large or bureaucratic organization, prevent…

Can't solve a problem that doesn't exist yet

Re: Doing nothing at work

#70

Post by hintymad »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #55
hintymad wrote: post #35

> Second, preventing or mitigating an incident early (even by just knowing the right feature flag to turn off) can save huge amounts of money: both immediate lost revenue during the incident and future lost revenue from customers who would have pulled their business or refused to sign pending contracts. Not to be sarcastic but just to offer an observation: in a sufficiently large or bureaucratic organization, prevent…

Also, disaster is a good signal to the higher ups that there are problems in your org. If you keep putting out every fire with heroics, your boss will know (maybe), but his boss's boss's boss will see that your org is doing great and everything is all code green. If you let a few things burn down, your boss's boss's boss will notice the fire, and things may improve. It's perhaps the easiest way you have of communicat…

Yeah, communicating upwards about potential issues and what you're doing about them is essential. When a disaster strikes, you'll look like a sage in the eyes of the higher ups.
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