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Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

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Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

#1

Post by JohnBrookz »

Hey guys

I’m having a hard time keeping up with expectations at my job. I’ve been at a company for 3 years and last year we had a new manager who started keeping metrics.

Some of the metrics include how fast turn around times are and comments on MRs.

Our tickets are expected to be done in 3 days and we don’t do sizing or anything. We manage about 10 services not including the infrastructure which we also manage.

I also get a lot of comments on my MRs about minor issues like spacing or formatting which only my tech lead cares about. Unfortunately my manager considered this as a bad thing.

We do everything from infrastructure to front end. This year my fiancé has been sick and I’ve kind of been unable to keep up with expectations. I’m considered a low performer along with 3/4ths of my team. We’re a 4 man engineering team.

It seems like I can’t reasonably meet expectations but the job market is so bad I don’t think I’d survive.

I have a small software company I built for fun with 4,000 users but it’s not making money for me to live on.

Is it even possible to get a job without a referral in this market? I plan on riding it out until I get fired or the market gets better (it won’t). Are these expectations unrealistic?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

#3

Post by bruce511 »

>> I also get a lot of comments on my MRs about minor issues like spacing or formatting which only my tech lead cares about. Unfortunately my manager considered this as a bad thing.

I'm not sure I can help you with your bigger questions, but this part is worth a comment.

When I started programming I measured results by "does it work". The cosmetics of the code, and indeed the UI in general weren't terribly important to me.

I came to understand that being fastidious about the code sent a signal about the quality if the code. I was showing that I cared about the details -and if I cared about those details I cared about the details of the problem I was actually working on.

Likewise, customers only saw my UI. If it was ugly, they assumed the program code was buggy. Clearly that's a false assumption, but it follows that if my UI is sloppy then my code is sloppy.

If you are getting bad feedback in your review, take it to heart and improve that part of your game. It may not be important to you but is important to others (and when you get to do code reviews in the future you'll likely understand why.)

No one is perfect. No one "keeps up" all the time. But mostly your manager wants to see you improving, adding value to the team. Which means playing by the team rules.

Good luck - I hope the situation improves for you.

Re: Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

#4

Post by tacostakohashi »

Here are some suggestions that may be of use:

* If tickets are supposed to be "done" in 3 days, you might find that people are happy if, after 2 days, you have some part completed/merged/released, and a new ticket(s) for the "rest" that is clearly described, detailed, etc. Rinse and repeat. Now, everything is "done" in 2 days, and you're exceeding expectations, and the new manager has a victory to talk about at the next meeting.

* For spacing, figure out how to configure your IDE, or some pretty-printer / indent tool that does it how the tech lead likes it. Obviously, "tabs vs spaces" or how to to format or whatever doesn't actually make any difference to the running code or anything else, so it's not worth arguing about, and no argument about it can ever actually be "won" because it's all personal preference, so if you just do it how they prefer, if that's what they want, they'll be happy. They probably regard this as being about "attention to detail" or being a "team player" as much as being about tabs vs spaces or whatever they say it's about. Start putting comments on _other people's_ MRs to follow the style the tech lead wants when they drop the ball.

* If your fiance is sick, take proper time off when needed, give as much notice as possible, ask people to take notes / record meetings for you to catch up on. Don't let it seem like an excuse / card you play _after_ you drop the ball. Don't be available / working at 80% of capacity/expectations because of this at all times, be 100% capacity / totally on the ball when you are there, but sometimes be away / 0% present when you need to be, and then they'll miss you when you're not there, and appreciate you when you get back.

It's possible you are too far gone at your current job, but maybe not... in any case, you'll find these suggestions apply anywhere. Obviously, deep down, we all know these metrics and tabs vs spaces and stuff are silly, but this is how companies work. These things can be gamed, so be the best at gaming the system, and everyone will be happy. If you fight it, you'll lose. If you don't like it... figure out how to start your own company :) 4k users is impressive, maybe you're closer to that than you think.

Re: Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

#5

Post by deanmoriarty »

Anecdotally, nearly every time I’ve had a change of manager, replacing the one I originally interviewed with when joining the company, I ended up quitting in less than one year, typically because I couldn’t deal with their management style. It always seemed silly that, after working my ass off, now I had to prove myself again to a new manager. Might as well jump ship and get a good raise for it.

So no advice but you’re not alone.

Re: Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

#6

Post by csomar »

> I also get a lot of comments on my MRs about minor issues like spacing or formatting which only my tech lead cares about. Unfortunately my manager considered this as a bad thing.

This is a problem with your manager. He should provide a pre-hook or a PR action that reformat on pushes. Sure, you can't have everyone using a different formatting convention, that would be insane (especially for diffs) but everyone should have his own formatting on his own IDE.

Re: Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

#7

Post by JohnBrookz »

csomar wrote: post #6

> I also get a lot of comments on my MRs about minor issues like spacing or formatting which only my tech lead cares about. Unfortunately my manager considered this as a bad thing. This is a problem with your manager. He should provide a pre-hook or a PR action that reformat on pushes. Sure, you can't have everyone using a different formatting convention, that would be insane (especially for diffs) but everyone shoul…

I think what’s weird is the formatting isn’t even something I can control for. In the past few MRs my tech lead asked me to apply changes he made which when compared has zero difference .

Re: Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

#8

Post by jermaustin1 »

> I also get a lot of comments on my MRs about minor issues like spacing or formatting which only my tech lead cares about. Unfortunately my manager considered this as a bad thing.

I'm actually with your tech lead and your manager on this one. It is imperative that all team members are using the same code style. Its part of your IDE's settings.

While it is fun to debate tabs vs spaces, camelCase vs PascalCase vs snake_case, private _members vs private Members, but in the real world, you match the style of the project you are working on. Always.

Re: Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

#9

Post by jermaustin1 »

JohnBrookz wrote: post #7
csomar wrote: post #6

> I also get a lot of comments on my MRs about minor issues like spacing or formatting which only my tech lead cares about. Unfortunately my manager considered this as a bad thing. This is a problem with your manager. He should provide a pre-hook or a PR action that reformat on pushes. Sure, you can't have everyone using a different formatting convention, that would be insane (especially for diffs) but everyone shoul…

I think what’s weird is the formatting isn’t even something I can control for. In the past few MRs my tech lead asked me to apply changes he made which when compared has zero difference .

That would likely be whitespace. Most diffs have an option to compare whitespace. Your lead probably has that enabled and wants you using spaces or tabs exclusively and not mixed.

Something that VS does nicely is tells you at the bottom right what the document is using (CRLF vs LF and tabs vs spaces). Not sure how many others have that, but it is really nice.

Re: Ask HN: How do I keep up with work?

#10

Post by thuanao »

Has your manager actually told you you aren't delivering fast enough? Or is that just a perception you have?

If you're not involved in the sizing or estimation then don't commit to any dates and don't bow to any pressure over dates.

In my experience pressure to deliver fast is never enforced. It's all talk used to squeeze and bully people and by incompetent managers who don't know any other knob to turn. Consider this a psychological game. Don't play into it. If you don't deliver by the dates chosen by your manager nothing will actually happen.

In my career whenever I've been faced with the choice between speed and quality I have always regretted it. Even when managers and everyone around me said otherwise. I have never, not once in my 20 year career, actually been punished for good quality even if that meant being late.

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