This sounds like it might be good thing for the company. Having employees who have extra capacity is incredibly important for an organization that wants to get things done; if you're constantly hard at work on something important, when something else comes up (someone has a question, there's a bug or an outage, whatever), you either have to delay the thing you're already working on, or delay the thing that came up. T…
Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
81–90 of 415 posts
Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
#82This sounds like it might be good thing for the company. Having employees who have extra capacity is incredibly important for an organization that wants to get things done; if you're constantly hard at work on something important, when something else comes up (someone has a question, there's a bug or an outage, whatever), you either have to delay the thing you're already working on, or delay the thing that came up. T…
Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I’m your boss, sitting next to you and in full view of your screen, and I’m there for 8 hours working, will the average person work a real 8 hours?
If you're my boss and doing this, then you're getting none of your own work done.
Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
ADHD and WFH have basically been a death sentence for me in regards to my output and velocity. Some days are good, some days are horrible. As someone who received their ADHD diagnosis at 22 (well after I fumbled through a CS degree wondering if I was a moron, while also working part time at startups) it changed my life. Ignorant people will say "nobody needs stimmies" but 5mg Adderall has legitimately changed my life…
Good thing you live in , I guess you would have been screwed if you lived in a society before Adderall and ADHD existed, eh?
I think the rise of ADHD as a common impediment correlates very strongly with a society that has few good career options for people who have these neurological variations.
Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
#85You’ve got management written all over you!
Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> From the feedback I got, I wasn't much more productive working more hours I've had this feedback too and I feel like it is likely not true. Really what it is is that your managers aren't paying much attention to your output and have sort of written you off for promotions, raises, etc. This was feedback I got a couple of months after I had been working my ass off trying to impress management and then a couple of wee…
No, I'm pretty sure it's true. I had to spend a ton of time explaining what I did and its values to my managers, like writing "ELI5" docs and then suddenly when they "got it" they paid very close attention to my work, and formed a team around me and established scope and got headcount. This is the messaging I got every single quarter: """David, your work is very good. All the people you work with say you're great and…
I have always had trouble with this type of nebulous goal.
Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
#87I've come to the conclusion that I am usually as productive/more productive than those around me and I tend to think it is _because_ of the way I work rather than in spite of it. When I do sit and do some work I am less stressed and can use a couple hours of motivation to knock out a days work in 2-3 hours usually in the morning. The rest of the day might be meetings/exercise/reading/social media/youtube and perhaps an additional 30-60min of work.
Ultimately I've found that the reason not to "slack" so much is less because I am not productive enough and more because when slacking I often lean on high dopamine activites like social media/youtube etc. that ultimately make me less happy than being with friends/going for a walk/learning something new.
I will also say I have done the "grind" for months at a time and looking back I know that I would have gotten the same amount of real work done at my current pace. The issue is the added stress makes it harder for me to think, I often end up working on the wrong problem as I am trying to move too quickly, and having too many pending tasks makes it harder to make decisions/prioritize.
I've also worked with those that grind and I've noticed they don't always work on high priority tasks. Often they are too focused on grinding they might not be able to step back and realize they could use their time better.
Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
#88At 3 hours a day, you work as much as everyone else does. [0] [0] https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver...
I did an HN poll, how many hours per day do you work including meetings and etc, and the answer was a normal distribution around 6 hours a day. https://imgur.com/qdSltlM The left axis is years of seniority.
Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
#89At 3 hours a day, you work as much as everyone else does. [0] [0] https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver...
If I’m your boss, sitting next to you and in full view of your screen, and I’m there for 8 hours working, will the average person work a real 8 hours?
Re: Ask HN: Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work
#90I know people who "waste" a huge amount of their time talking to people in the office and probably do less than ~3 of real work a day. They also distract others. But they would call that team building.