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Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by

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Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by

#91

Post by Artoooooor »

padolsey wrote: post #47

I remember working for a small agency in London with a bit of a top-heavy management structure. Many times would my shoulder be subtly gazed over to "check on progress". I ended up using IRSSI to chat with friends, wgets to read my fav blogs, and my twitter stream pouring into what looked like an excel spreadsheet UI . I always got my work done in the first couple hours of the day. I will always resent those managers…

Did the stream include sound? Certain music genres can discourage the boss from logging in again:)

Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by

#92

Post by varispeed »

xlii wrote: post #81
bboygravity wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but think that there must be some arbitrage opportunity there: massive companies hire top notch engineers and all make them waste their time in (commute to/from) offices. What if someone comes along and is like "I'm going to provide the exact same service, but without offices and everybody works from home". That company would have a competitive edge, because: people from the established company would hav…

That’s an unpopular opinion but given more than a decade of remote work experience I’d say: yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average). The „on average” is key however. I’d say that most of the people don’t understand the cost of remote work until it hits them and simply not all can bear that cost. It’s not like people are unwilling (occasionally you can find slackers) but it’s more often thing…

> Then there’s self-drive requirement that can easily be extinguished

It is 99% extinguished by low pay though. Low pay means person can't afford better living environment, can't afford leaving toxic partner, can't afford to go out or hobbies which leads to depression.

> Efficient teams are more difficult to create when there is no space for people to bond over non-work (team pizza/social events)

That has nothing to do with efficiency. If you create fake family or cult environment, then it is easier to manipulate workers to do unpaid overtime. They "go hard" until they burn out and they then are thrown away like a trash by the corporation. Efficient teams are composed of happy people, who live in healthy environment. You can't have efficient worker who is worried more about their bills than their current ticket.

Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by

#93

Post by gruturo »

bboygravity wrote: post #69
padolsey wrote: post #47

I remember working for a small agency in London with a bit of a top-heavy management structure. Many times would my shoulder be subtly gazed over to "check on progress". I ended up using IRSSI to chat with friends, wgets to read my fav blogs, and my twitter stream pouring into what looked like an excel spreadsheet UI . I always got my work done in the first couple hours of the day. I will always resent those managers…

I can't help but think that there must be some arbitrage opportunity there: massive companies hire top notch engineers and all make them waste their time in (commute to/from) offices. What if someone comes along and is like "I'm going to provide the exact same service, but without offices and everybody works from home". That company would have a competitive edge, because: people from the established company would hav…

> Does the fact that WFH is not a thing mean that in the real world, for most people, coming to the office IS actually more efficient? Or does this just need more time? I'm honestly not sure, but I've sure been tempted to start a competitor to very silly old fashion "you shall come here and sit at a computer where I can see you" type companies.

Sadly yes. I was grumbling about finding a solution to a problem and a colleague overheard me and supplied a perfect solution, as he had the same issue a month before. Same colleague was grumbling about needing a specific non-OSS software and the paperwork around requesting it and I told him we have a subscription already and he can get access to it. Wouldn't have happened if not in the office.

My boss tries to keep me informed of what's happening and what will come, but often enough the best stuff is learned serendipitously at the coffee machine. A couple of times I challenged what I learned and it ended up correcting our strategy and saving money.

Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by

#94

Post by otherme123 »

dijit wrote: post #78

Never underestimate the power of colour on a terminal. Back when I was first becoming an adminsys, colour in the terminal was pretty rare. Emoji's certainly didn't exist even as a concept in the west at that point either. However, a senior sysadmin on my team said "when you're writing your management scripts, remember to add colour codes if things are good or if they are not good. Managers freaking love that". He was…

We were once warned that the TV was comming to make some interviews with the bosses. I though it will be funny to pipe a nginx access log slowly (5 lines per second or so) through a coloring log program, and leave it running, to show in the background.

I left the room because I didn't want to be on camera, and in no time they were recording in front of my screen because it looked "cool, busy and profesional".

Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by

#95

Post by stef25 »

padolsey wrote: post #47

I remember working for a small agency in London with a bit of a top-heavy management structure. Many times would my shoulder be subtly gazed over to "check on progress". I ended up using IRSSI to chat with friends, wgets to read my fav blogs, and my twitter stream pouring into what looked like an excel spreadsheet UI . I always got my work done in the first couple hours of the day. I will always resent those managers…

> a manager who could remote-log-in to my machine

That's diabolical

Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by

#97

Post by pacifika »

Good fun to write these tools. In practice but simply rolling back a git repo and deleting a JavaScript vendor folder or simulating a CI run would have the same effectiveness I think.

Or helping understand people that engineers need thinking time.

Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by

#99

Post by otherme123 »

robomartin wrote: post #23

My rule has always been very simple: If you are goofing off, don't hide it. The worst thing you can do if you work for me is think I am stupid and pretend you are working. I'd rather someone say "My head just isn't in it right now", which is honest and something that happens to all of us. I understand the need to unplug every so often as much as anyone. There are days when my brain just isn't in sync with what I have…

Not bullet proof. I have coworkers that are very specialized in looking busy, like sending mails at late hours, always in meetings, micromanaging and bike shedding other people work, and so on. They get lauded by the bosses for working so much.

Re: Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by

#100

Post by forinti »

padolsey wrote: post #47

I remember working for a small agency in London with a bit of a top-heavy management structure. Many times would my shoulder be subtly gazed over to "check on progress". I ended up using IRSSI to chat with friends, wgets to read my fav blogs, and my twitter stream pouring into what looked like an excel spreadsheet UI . I always got my work done in the first couple hours of the day. I will always resent those managers…

I've never had such intrusive management, but I have worked at places where I had to justify every minute of the day.

So my tasks were inflationed to occupy the whole day on those days I didn't have enough work for 8 hours.

That really messes up your statistics.

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