[HN Gopher] Work less, get more done: Analytics for maximizing p...
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Work less, get more done: Analytics for maximizing productivity
(2009)
Author : punnerud
Score : 168 points
Date : 2023-02-27 07:55 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kalzumeus.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kalzumeus.com)
| gitfan86 wrote:
| 1. Momentum and Urgency seem to matter a lot in productivity and
| procrastination. 2. Focusing on outcomes rather than working just
| to work leads to focusing on useful work.
|
| When you combine these things you can end up in a situation
| where.
|
| Person A worked 5 hours and 80% of their work was useful = 4
| units Person B worked 50 hours and 10% of their work was useful =
| 5 units
|
| Which one is correct depends on the goal. Is the goal efficiency
| or useful output?
| Tilman_launch wrote:
| Unproductive work can multiply, so your colleagues start
| wasting time, too. For example, if not carefully managed,
| initiatives that started for valid information, optimization or
| standardization efforts can turn into wasteful data collection
| busy work with little or no returns.
| datruth29 wrote:
| I guess the answer for that would be what did Person A spend
| the other 45 hours on, and is that extra unit Person 5
| generated worth the additional 45 hours spent on it.
| onion2k wrote:
| _Which one is correct depends on the goal._
|
| Which is correct depends on who's paying. If you're a startup
| you want lots of Person A. If you're a consultancy you want
| lots of Person B.
| bob1029 wrote:
| Urgency/mission is probably the biggest one for me, especially
| when elements of desperation and impossibility are involved.
|
| Working on easy or routine problems for 40 hours per week is
| torture to me. The ratio between my productivity extremes can
| be most conveniently described as "infinite".
|
| If you want to know the root cause of the 10x, 100x, whateverx
| developer, this is almost certainly it. Someone was likely
| inspired to work on a super hard thing and just kept going.
| They don't have some weird genetic defect or unfair educational
| advantage.
| danielovichdk wrote:
| "Then again, programmers at most companies work on a schedule
| designed to maximize the productivity of illiterate 18th century
| water loom operators, so expecting rationality might be
| excessively optimistic."
|
| Brilliant
| hummus_bae wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| layer8 wrote:
| Tldr:
|
| > Productivity Technique #1: Outsource.
|
| Aka "delegate".
|
| > Productivity Technique #2: Automate Your Processes.
|
| > Productivity Technique #3: Eliminate Unproductive Uses of Time.
|
| Nothing unusual here, except maybe for the conclusion:
|
| > Worker Smarter, Not Harder. Then Go Home.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > Work less, get more done
|
| "Or even better, work more and get even MORE done!" - your boss
| momentmaker wrote:
| The problem with trying to measure productivity is that it
| measures only how well people can do the wrong jobs. Any job that
| can be measured for productivity probably should be eliminated
| from the list of jobs that people do.
|
| The task for each worker in the industrial age was to discover
| how to do his job better: that's productivity. Frederick Taylor
| revolutionized industry by using his scientific method to
| optimize mechanical work. But in the network economy, where
| machines do most of the inhumane work of manufacturing, the
| question for each worker is not "How do I do this job right?" but
| "What is the right job to do?"
|
| Answering this question is, of course, extremely hard to do. It's
| called an executive function. In the past, only the top 10% of
| the workforce was expected to make such decisions. Now, everyone,
| not just executives, must decide what is the right next thing to
| do.
| 972811 wrote:
| i do find it a little strange that he mentioned 4 hour workweek
| as hucksterism and then 2/3 of his points are some of the main
| tenets of the book (outsourcing and automation)
| cwp wrote:
| He also mentioned that it contained "an ounce of solid
| productivity gold". So if it communicates the same advice in a
| blog post instead of a book, well, that seems reasonable.
| miroljub wrote:
| Why?
|
| Would my salary be higher if I become more productive? No. My
| salary is fixed. I get my bonus even with a minimal effort.
|
| Will I work less if I become more productive? No. I still have to
| spend 8 hours par day at work.
|
| Will I get more work to do if I become more productive? Yes. As
| soon as I report something as finished, I get more work. And
| expectations grow.
|
| Being more productive doesn't benefit me, my coworkers, even my
| company or the society as a whole. It only leads to more stress
| and strain.
|
| Then why would I want to be more productive? I'm fine spending my
| 35-40 hours "working" and making "work" for me and my coworkers
| as comfortable as possible.
|
| And when I go home, I'm not tired, but refreshed and ready to go
| on with my life.
|
| EDIT: I'm saying this as actually one of the top performers at my
| company. It's politics and bullshitting that gets you more money
| and promotions, not hard work. But that's the game I refuse to
| play. Instead, I focus on doing the least amount of work I can
| get away with. Say "Wally" from Dilbert, but without being an
| asshole.
| justsocrateasin wrote:
| I'm confused why this is the top comment - how exactly can you
| be "one of the top performers" at your company while also
| "focusing on doing the least amount of work you can get away
| with"?? Surely 90% of the company isn't doing less work than
| you OR that much less intelligent than you that their moderate
| effort is worse than your smallest effort. You either are
| working harder than you give yourself credit for, or over
| emphasizing your contributions.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I'm confused why this is the top comment - how exactly can
| you be "one of the top performers" at your company while also
| "focusing on doing the least amount of work you can get away
| with"??
|
| I've been at a few companies where the "top performers" were
| doing the least amount of work they could get away with. It
| was a combination of two things:
|
| 1) Extreme politicking. They were charismatic, charming, and
| connected within the company. They were in all the right
| meetings to take credit for successes and shift blame for
| failures. They may have connections, like being long-time
| friends of the CEO, that made them untouchable and targets
| for flattery/praise from people hoping to climb the ladder.
| They always insisted that _they_ didn 't participate in
| politics, but then they'd go on to describe something like
| manipulating the system so they could get the easy, high-
| profile work and sticking others with the grunt work. Nobody
| likes to think that they play politics themselves, but that's
| what it is.
|
| 2) Gaming the system. They knew, or even created, the hidden
| metrics that were used to evaluate employee productivity. For
| example, one person was busy chatting in Slack every day with
| short one-line messages. He created a dashboard of Slack
| activity that ranked employees (where he was always on top by
| a wide margin) and encouraged his team to be very active in
| Slack, while the rest of us had no idea. At another company
| we were secretly evaluated by lines of code committed, so of
| course the "top performer" was always committing a lot of
| generated code and constantly "refactoring" other people's
| code by moving it around to increase their Git activity.
|
| It's a massive red flag when you're at a company and can
| visibly see that the "top performers" are avoiding work and
| playing games. It means you can never get ahead by _working_.
| This creates a cynical worldview (much like the parent
| comment) that work isn 't about _work_ , it's about gaming
| the system and extracting cash from the company while
| minimizing your work. It's really cynical cycle that puts
| people in a bad position when they leave for well-run
| companies where good work is actually rewarded.
|
| Don't get stuck in that mindset, because it's tough for some
| people to escape. If you're at a company where the rewards go
| to people who game the system while those who work are
| languishing, you should start searching for a new job.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Anecdote regarding #2:
|
| When I was a little boy and just joined another back office
| unit, my first assignment from boss was to create a
| spreadsheet, that basically served as a log of performed
| work. The boss went out of his way to tell me to hide
| anything that would give other employees an idea of what is
| being tracked ( in that case, average cases resolved ). I
| did with objections that it is not a great metric to begin
| with and that people are not idiots. I was overruled, but
| we didn't have to wait long for results. People starting
| skipping 'hard cases' to up their averages and grabbing
| 'easy cases'( cuz you know.. during one on ones boss
| discussed averages without officially disclosing it ).
| People are not idiots and they quickly figure our what is
| being rewarded ( or at least not punished ).
|
| It was my first time learning that boss can make stupid
| decisions too.
| s0rce wrote:
| Or the OP is very efficient at doing useful work and everyone
| else isn't or is wasting a lot of their time not on work or
| not on useful work.
| peteradio wrote:
| 0% efficiency is not the floor. What's the efficiency of
| someone working the wrong direction on a feature? What's the
| efficiency of someone working off bad requirements that they
| don't know enough to question?
| tokinonagare wrote:
| Do you have experience working in a big company? From my own,
| it's not too hard to be a (top) performer while doing very
| few actual work.
| MadSudaca wrote:
| So that in the situation that you get fired (possible based on
| the attitude you show here), no one else wants to hire you
| (unlikely I admit), and you have to work for yourself, you can
| get more done for each hour of your time, since your livelihood
| may depend on it. At the same time, honoring the fairly recent
| trend of increasing human productivity that has allowed us to
| have SIGNIFICANTLY better quality of life than our distant and
| not so distant ancestors.
| miroljub wrote:
| > At the same time, honoring the fairly recent trend of
| increasing human productivity that has allowed us to have
| SIGNIFICANTLY better quality of life than our distant and not
| so distant ancestors.
|
| According to actual data, increased productivity since 1980
| didn't result in increasing salaries [1], and since I work
| for salary, I don't care about increasing my productivity _at
| work_ if it doesn 't directly result in increased
| compensation.
|
| [1] https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
| MadSudaca wrote:
| Would you be willing to have your salary reduced if your
| productivity is lower?
| sublinear wrote:
| Increased productivity doesn't always have to mean working
| harder, usually the opposite, and anyway why should
| increased productivity imply increased compensation if
| everything else in the equation has remained the same?
| kadoban wrote:
| > Will I work less if I become more productive? No.
|
| Why not?
| ar_lan wrote:
| Yeah, I'm confused by this one, as salaried employeees.
| Unless your salaried job is making you clock in, why not work
| the 3-4 hours it takes to do your normal job, take whatever
| meetings, and go do literally anything else with the rest of
| your now paid-for free time?
|
| I mean, I don't subscribe to the mentality (I usually have
| side projects for my work that have tangibly lead to
| promotions in the past), but if I were, I'd just use it for
| more free time.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Because the people above you don't typically have that
| attitude about your work - somehow you're not being paid to
| do the work (as salaried implies), you're being paid to sit
| in your seat for at least 40 hours AND do the work (just in
| case that's going to take more than 40 hours).
| cruano wrote:
| So use your now-free hours to look for a different job ?
|
| I mean it's hackernews after all, we are talking FAANG or
| startup kind of things not Walmart bag-boy
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Do you know of FAANG or startups that let you leave work
| if you're done early for the day, every day?
| sunsunsunsun wrote:
| The key is that you don't ask permission, you just leave.
| kadoban wrote:
| Yeah, if I manage to find a way to do something really
| efficiently, or alternatively if I force myself to power
| through something more quickly than usual, then I'm happy
| that I helped out my boss and my company. But I'm also sure
| as hell going to take a nice relaxing lunch, go for a walk
| and enjoy my day just a bit extra too, or just stop for the
| day earlier.
|
| Half for them, half for me and we're both better off than
| if I was slower at my work.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/productivity-
| workforc...
|
| Industrial Revolution and automation lead to better profit
| margin returns for owners, not less work for workers
| scottLobster wrote:
| At least where I work we have to record our hours down to
| 1/10th of an hour, and charge specific numbers for specific
| contracts. There's some reasonable flexibility/tolerance, but
| if I get all my work done in half a day and spend the rest of
| the day on youtube, but charge a full day, that's called
| mischarging and is one of the few quick ways to be fired.
| pc86 wrote:
| I think most folks here would file this under the "terrible
| job" category and move on. Most jobs don't require this
| sort of micromanagement, and none of the really great ones
| do.
| Illotus wrote:
| When your employer is contracting people out against
| hourly rate you generally have to be accurate with the
| hours. When customers pay by the hour I find it quite
| reasonable. Also in some countries keeping track of hours
| worked is required by law for the employees benefit.
| scottLobster wrote:
| Haha, the hours are extremely flexible, so it's not so
| bad. Can blame some contract fraud my fortune 500
| employer committed back in the 80s. It's been a
| requirement ever since.
| freetinker wrote:
| How does one measure "knowledge work" with such
| granularity? Isn't output/deliverable over total time spent
| a better metric?
| thfuran wrote:
| >Being more productive doesn't benefit me, my coworkers, even
| my company
|
| Why would you doing more work for your company for the same pay
| not benefit your company?
| rtpg wrote:
| Imagine if you made no progress, day in and day out. None
| whatsoever
|
| This is the prelude to burnout for lots of people. It's almost
| always circumstantial and likely to be a result of decisions
| made by others, but the point is that making no progress sucks
|
| So from there you can conclude that sometimes people want to
| make more progress. They want to be a bit more productive
| sometimes, just to fill our needs for self actualisation a bit.
|
| I agree with your sentiment in the abstract, that it's not up
| to workers to just maximize productivity for (really) no gain.
| Bosses want more output? That's their problem.
|
| But sometimes just being a bit more productive is good for the
| mood! And some people have trouble for process reasons rather
| than external reasons.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I'm answering the question because it's a simple one. Some
| people like and feel better when they are productive. Other
| people have jobs where they are rewarded. Neither of these
| points should be a surprise. If you are happy, you do you.
|
| If this is a passive aggressive post about how you wish you
| were compensated more based on productivity, that is an
| entirely different challenge for you to sort out
| zamnos wrote:
| Seriously. If the idea of being more productive is totally
| unmotivating to miroljub because it won't pay more when
| there's clearly more output, then maybe they'd be happier
| working somewhere that a 2x multiplier to productivity _does_
| result in a doubling of pay.
| twblalock wrote:
| > EDIT: I'm saying this as actually one of the top performers
| at my company. It's politics and bullshitting that gets you
| more money and promotions, not hard work. But that's the game I
| refuse to play. Instead, I focus on doing the least amount of
| work I can get away with. Say "Wally" from Dilbert, but without
| being an asshole.
|
| You need to work somewhere else. Politics is everywhere, but it
| is not the only thing that matters at many companies.
| Competence and productivity matter too.
| athenot wrote:
| Even in a corporate job, this is immensely useful. Maximizing
| my own productivity for the things I _have to do_ frees up time
| for the things _want to do_ at work. I 'm talking about
| personal growth, not leisure (time needs to be allocated to
| that too).
|
| Personal growth then leads to taking on more responsibilities.
| Sometimes that leads to a promotion, other times it leads to
| better job opportunities. Either way, this contributes to
| salary increases.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| at the end of the day, you're still selling your time and
| labor for the same or more hours per week.
|
| as they say "time is money", except that while you can
| certainly earn more money, there's no earning ownership of
| your time as a wage worker until you're able to eject
| yourself entirely from it (whether through retirement, death,
| or taking your turn as the owner for workers).
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > taking your turn as the owner
|
| I agree with your sentiment but this part is false.
| Everyone has a boss, even business owners; the boss just
| becomes the customer instead of a manager. Becoming an
| owner doesn't release you.
| scottLobster wrote:
| To some degree you can choose your customers as the
| owner. My manager can tell me "stop coding and scrub
| toilets or you're fired" if they want, and fire me if I
| refuse. Owners may not have complete freedom, but they at
| least have more.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| You only have that freedom if you don't want your company
| to be paid. Saying you can choose customers is no
| different than saying you can choose to scrub (or not)
| those toilets.
|
| Yes, you always have choices. Consequences are not very
| different.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Owners can turn down customers and employees can turn
| down companies. The trade-offs are different but that
| doesn't mean you are a slave. Changing jobs is extremely
| easy, the only hard part is wearing the pros and cons of
| different jobs.
| zamnos wrote:
| Tell me you're an American without telling me you're
| American. Employment contracts can specify what type of
| job/role you will be doing, and work outside that role
| requires a new contract (along with a raise, generally).
| Would you really be happy scrubbing toilets if it paid 6
| figures?
| unmole wrote:
| > at the end of the day, you're still selling your time and
| labor
|
| But for more money.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Yep that's what I said
| HEmanZ wrote:
| This is only true if you never expect to ever get promoted
| and your job has no performance based incentives.
| Especially in the US, engineering promotions come with huge
| raises and bonuses. Compounded over say a decade, extra
| productivity can land you in a very nice spot financially.
|
| E.g if being more productive got you a $100k/yr more raise,
| or a $100k larger bonus, then it's definitely not selling
| your time for the same money. If this compounds, like it
| does nicely in many industries (tech, finance, general
| "business" of really any kind), then your productivity now
| is worth real money in the future.
|
| It also feels nice to, ya know, get things done. You don't
| have to be an extreme pessimist about the good things you
| bring to the world because you don't get 100% of the
| profit.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Yep I said that you can earn more money
| xyzelement wrote:
| You are right, productivity only matters if one's aims are
| meaningful and one wants to accomplish them.
|
| Most people have that in at least some aspect of their work and
| life.
|
| They are working on their own thing (as the person in the post
| does), their compensation is directly (sales) or indirectly
| (almost everyone) is tied to it, because they want to see some
| impact or they simply have pride in their profession and work.
|
| It seems odd to live a life with _nothing_ you want to
| accomplish with more speed and certainty.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, the real question is what you want to do with your life.
| The real resource I'm spending is time, so I want to maximize
| the total outcome over my life. That means really doing
| everything: really working when I use my working time, really
| playing when I play, really spending time with my friends and
| family when I do that.
|
| The point is to get more life per life :)
|
| But everyone has their way to live life and their own
| preference coefficients. I don't weight comfort very much, for
| instance, but you do so highly. And we're all different: when I
| get more accomplished in the day, I feel more energized and
| eager to get on my Peloton and (also) hang out with people.
| When you do more in the day, you are tired.
|
| So, the best I can say is that sometimes people of one type are
| talking to others of their own type and the answer to your
| "why?" is "No reason. That's how I choose to live my life. You
| don't have to do this if you're not this type".
|
| It's no different from someone posting "If you want to jump
| start your battery, connect these leads to those terminals" and
| someone responding "Why? I would just call Geico and get them
| to send someone out". The answer to that "why?" is "You're not
| the audience. Skip it and go read something else".
| throwaway2203 wrote:
| Because in our field, when you work, you learn., when you
| learn, it compounds.
|
| I spent my 20s with your attitude and now regret it as I see my
| peers at a level or two above me.
| kaba0 wrote:
| You ain't learning anything from doing the same old CRUD app
| for years on end.
| quest88 wrote:
| Perhaps they were more strategic about what they spent their
| time on and worked on things that would propel their career.
| throwaway2203 wrote:
| Eh, anecdotally I spent about three years thinking the same
| and figured I'd use my spare time to become a writer. But
| you can't really take out the time you put in your day
| career (8x5) out of your private life unless you don't have
| much going on in your private life.
|
| If I'd gunned in my 40hrs and spent my private time
| chilling instead of slacking in my 40 and then trying to
| squeeze out 10-15/wk to focus on writing, I'd have been
| better off in retrospect.
|
| This is highly personal obv, YMMV. But I think your day job
| should be the one you want to compound your skills in.
| jarjoura wrote:
| If you have a good EM, they should ask, when can you get this
| finished by?
|
| If it doesn't align with the deadline, the EM can then add
| other teammates to help balance the work or assign the entire
| project to someone else.
|
| It's a myth that these companies push you to burn out, it's
| just we're bad at estimating our own commitments. So a good EM
| will also take your deadline and add buffers to it when
| delivering their own schedule upwards.
|
| The benefit to being more productive isn't always about packing
| more work into a day. It's also a skill to improve the amount
| of time you're not working by giving you more free time.
| deepsun wrote:
| Try working for yourself, you'll get much more self-esteem.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| As an aside, this reminds me of the sad decline of contract
| Consulting in the US and California especially. It used to be a
| great opportunity to dodge office politics and be compensated
| based on performance for many people. If you can do 2x the job,
| you can make a scope of work with 2x the responsibility in
| charge that.
|
| I always wanted to be a contract engineer but over time it
| became clear that the legal requirements and state incentives
| were stacked against it. There were a few legal rulings that
| substantially increased the legal risk of employing contract
| labor directly and now most companies prefer to work through
| middlemen who capture a huge chunk of contractors salary. These
| Middle Men add basically no value to either party aside from
| legal deniability. Most attractive companies have stringent
| requirements on independent contractors in my field requiring
| that they have multiple sources of income.
| j7ake wrote:
| Some people work in areas where their results are directly tied
| to their rewards.
|
| And those environments are usually rapidly developing, so same
| results one year later returns smaller rewards.
|
| Therefore, in some areas, one needs to constantly improve in
| order to deliver better results over time.
|
| A layman's example: you cannot stagnate as an NBA player
| because the game constantly evolves and one must be to date
| with the latest tactics and techniques.
|
| Assuming that the same results will give same rewards over an
| entire career is waiting to be made redundant by advances in
| the field.
| sublinear wrote:
| > Assuming that the same results will give same rewards over
| an entire career is waiting to be made redundant by advances
| in the field.
|
| True advancements are rare and unevenly distributed. Most
| workplaces are not following the latest trends, but picking
| the right tools for the job. Contrary to what many believe,
| software is only becoming more specialized and complex and it
| makes perfect sense that it would.
| pc86 wrote:
| > _Will I work less if I become more productive? No. I still
| have to spend 8 hours par day at work._
|
| Are you remote? IMO once you hit a given bar - for some that's
| enough to not get fired, and others it's maxing out their bonus
| - you're done. Some days I work 10 hours. Some days I work 3.
| I'm always _available_ during working hours but that doesn 't
| necessarily mean I'm actively chugging through JIRA tickets or
| even thinking about work.
|
| I agree with the general thrust of your entire comment but I
| don't really accept the premise of "I can't be more productive
| because I have to be here for 8h regardless." Why wouldn't you
| want to work 5x6 days instead of 5x8 if you could?
| BossingAround wrote:
| I am the same. The problem I'm facing is that, as you say, I
| still have to be _available_ for at least 8 hours. That means
| you can't structure the day according to your needs. The
| corpo always has priority.
|
| So in the end, one commonly ends up underutilized, instead of
| being well rested and happy about how little work they get by
| with. In my experience, underutilization leads to burnout.
| [deleted]
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Why wouldn't you want to work 5x6 days instead of 5x8 if
| you could?
|
| I'm 100% with you and that's how I operate as well. However
| that's not the situation GP seems to be in unfortunately.
|
| > Will I work less if I become more productive? No. I still
| have to spend 8 hours par day at work.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << Say "Wally" from Dilbert, but without being an asshole.
|
| Can you invoke Dilbert these days without incurring wrath of
| people he, apparently, offended? Sadly, I agree and most people
| seem misunderstand what his strip offered to the office-bound
| population ( which is the part you mentioned: politics and
| related bshittery).
|
| I try to be more productive, but it is mostly, because I seem
| to be stuck on menial and boring stuff so I am forced to be
| clever and automated.
| wisemang wrote:
| The wrath is less about the comic strip and more about the
| cartoonist being a bigot
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Bigot is a fascinating word for me, because it is defined
| as:
|
| "a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a
| belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is
| prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or
| people on the basis of their membership of a particular
| group."
|
| With that language you easily describe a vast majority of
| US population ( including people who attack that author )
| and I am not joking. And that is before we get to the part
| about whether what he said was 'worthy' of cancellation ( I
| read his comments and their portrayal in the media seemed,
| at best, biased ) and why it is so hard for people to
| separate the artist from their art ( same story with
| wossname from Harry Potter and ruckus surrounding that game
| ).
|
| You sure this is the right way going about it? I am asking
| specifically because the pendulum is starting to swing the
| other way.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > Can you invoke Dilbert these days without incurring wrath
| of people he, apparently, offended?
|
| Sure, you can. Just bring it up, and take the risk of
| people's opinions about you, just like you already do with
| _just about any other thing_.
|
| Would you talk about how amazing shark fin soup or foie gras
| is? Perhaps, but then you might offend people who know and
| care about how those foods are made. Does that stop you from
| talking about it? Maybe! Or maybe not! You draw your own
| lines.
|
| Honestly, it seems to me that the vast majority of people
| bringing this up are people who implicitly support what Scott
| Adams says, who are then trying to make sure that no one
| expresses negative opinions about their hero.
|
| Which is not gonna happen. I like Dilbert, but Scott Adams
| has gone off the deep end and is saying crap that I strongly
| disagree with. I'm not going to run around defending him for
| free, and have made a choice to not read any new content by
| him. I might make a choice to stop reading and referring to
| his content in the future. The guy should think carefully
| before talking, just like the rest of us do.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << Which is not gonna happen. I like Dilbert, but Scott
| Adams has gone off the deep end and is saying crap that I
| strongly disagree with.
|
| Can you elaborate on what, exactly, you strongly disagree
| with? I believe you, but I am curious as to which part,
| specifically, made you say.. "um, I am not touching that
| with a 10 foot pole".
|
| << I'm not going to run around defending him for free, and
| have made a choice to not read any new content by him. I
| might make a choice to stop reading and referring to his
| content in the future.
|
| That is fair and absolutely your right to do as you see
| fit. Still, what did he do, exactly, to deserve such a
| treatment?
|
| << The guy should think carefully before talking, just like
| the rest of us do.
|
| You accept it as if it was a given. I think it is a
| ridiculous way to live life. As always, all progress
| depends on the unreasonable.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > Can you elaborate on what, exactly, you strongly
| disagree with? I believe you, but I am curious as to
| which part, specifically, made you say.. "um, I am not
| touching that with a 10 foot pole".
|
| No, there is no reason for me to tell you if you don't
| have an idea already. Maybe he Tweeted about how foie
| gras is so amazing, and I am an animal lover.
|
| It doesn't really matter; and leads to a ton of
| unnecessary small arguments which I'd rather avoid being
| drawn into.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| <<No, there is no reason for me to tell you if you don't
| have an idea already.
|
| Am I expected to keep track of the entire internet and
| its comings and goings? While I am aware of the story,
| clearly my interpretation is different from yours. Is it
| not a worthwhile endeavor to seek how other people
| perceive the same even? If not, why not? Or am I already
| labelled for having dared to defend a person deemed 'bad'
| by Twitter squad.
|
| There is a reason. One is that I am unable to visit
| people's minds and hearts, but it is telling that you
| can't seem to be able to articulate the exact reason you
| acted this way.
|
| <<Maybe he Tweeted about how foie gras is so amazing, and
| I am an animal lover.
|
| Maybe. Was that the reason?
|
| << It doesn't really matter; and leads to a ton of
| unnecessary small arguments which I'd rather avoid.
|
| edit: removed last paragraph. did not fit what i was
| trying to say
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > Or am I already labelled for having dared to defend a
| person deemed 'bad' by Twitter squad.
|
| Not at all! I am inviting you to believe that there is no
| Twitter "squad". No one is out to get you. You do not
| need to be afraid of being "labeled", or "canceled", or
| whatever the latest term is! And you don't need to know
| what my specific viewpoint on your favorite subject is --
| there are tons of people writing about it on the Internet
| if you are curious!
|
| > it is telling that you can't seem to be able to
| articulate the exact reason you acted this way.
|
| It isn't, really. In fact, Adams's column here [1] makes
| my point better than I could! I disagree with his view
| point on certain matters, and that's just it. That
| doesn't mean I'm afraid, or ignorant, or that I otherwise
| want to mark everyone who shares his viewpoints as evil.
| I'd rather just not talk about it, which is an explicit,
| and I believe, reasonable choice.
|
| ----------------------------------------
|
| [1] https://dilbert.com/strip/2023-02-26
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << No one is out to get you.
|
| Funny. Dilbert's creator may feel otherwise.
|
| << And you don't need to know what my specific viewpoint
| on your favorite subject is
|
| True, but you decided to enter this conversation. I did
| not drag you into it and make you an unwilling
| participant. Your viewpoint helps the conversation along.
| You are right that is not a requirement. It just helps.
|
| << It isn't, really. In fact, Adams's column here [1]
| makes my point better than I could!
|
| Does it though? At best, it is hiding your own views
| behind those of the author. Worse, I can't seem to tell
| if I am Bob in this case or not. The selected strip may
| not be relevant here.
|
| << I disagree with his view point on certain matters, and
| that's just it.
|
| You did mention that; you didn't mention one thing you
| disagree with so far though.
|
| << That doesn't mean I'm afraid, or ignorant, or that I
| otherwise want to mark everyone who shares his viewpoints
| as evil.
|
| It is hard for me categorize your view without knowing
| what it is. Clever.
|
| You may not be explicitly saying his views are evil, but
| clearly you don't consider them as neutral given your
| willingness to distance yourself without stating the
| reason to distance yourself. I suppose we don't have to
| label it as anything, but actions tend to speak louder
| than words.
| maCDzP wrote:
| How do you view WFH and freeing time so you can do other stuff?
| wwweston wrote:
| "I focus on doing the least amount of work I can get away with"
| is one reasonable strategy. If you've got continued employment
| it's probably working for your employer and may be working for
| you too (and this can make a lot of sense given that a certain
| amount of tolerance / "slack" in a system can make it more
| robust).
|
| It also seems to me that while increased productivity decreases
| the time you spend on a task, it doesn't necessarily require
| you to notify people immediately when you're done or dictate
| what you do with the time saved. It might be more slack. It
| might be something else you can do to make your job easier. It
| might examining the art of productive politics and
| bullshitting. It might be learning something work relevant you
| find more fun...
|
| That said, far be it from me to alter any balance you're
| already content with. If productivity is for anything at all,
| it should include satisfaction.
| hobofan wrote:
| (2009)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Interesting that the term 'meme' appears in this text, which
| didn't get much traction until 2010s
|
| https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=m...
| kirubakaran wrote:
| The Selfish Gene was published in 1976 though
| fluidcruft wrote:
| "meme" is an ancient term that predates the Internet. It was
| a well-established thing even back in high school English in
| '95 when we read and discussed Naked Lunch.
| swsieber wrote:
| Another data point is the "Adherents of the Repeated Meme"
| from Dr. Who in 2005. https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_En
| d_of_the_World_(TV_stor...
|
| And it is in line with the earlier, non-internet definition
| of "an element of a culture or system of behavior passed
| from one individual to another by imitation or other
| nongenetic means." (There's another definition related to
| funny things being repeated, as opposed to behavior).
| truth777 wrote:
| [dead]
| vocram wrote:
| Despite this making a lot of sense, I'm afraid you can only apply
| it to your own business. No one paying you a fixed wage will ever
| agree that working less hours for them is better than working
| more.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| What business is it of theirs how many hours it is taking you
| to get the required work done?
| onion2k wrote:
| _No one paying you a fixed wage will ever agree that working
| less hours for them is better than working more._
|
| When I was running startups a decade ago I would regularly ask
| devs _not_ to work so many hours. Grind culture was a thing,
| and it made our code much worse. The effect of lack of sleep
| and a shitty work /life balance is abundantly obvious in a PR.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| > The effect of lack of sleep and a shitty work/life balance
| is abundantly obvious in a PR.
|
| It is high time more bosses understood this
| barbazoo wrote:
| Many have and it's up to devs to some degree to pick the
| right job honestly. Obviously you won't work at FAANG but
| that's more than ok for many.
| joenot443 wrote:
| Anecdotal, but as I've moved from a series A, to an
| established startup, to a unicorn, to FAANG, I've found
| myself shipping code at a lower velocity every step of
| the way.
|
| At my first job I was the second contributor to a project
| which didn't do PRs. If it worked, just push it. My
| present process is a bit more involved!
| e12e wrote:
| FAANG prefer inferior quality code and more LOCs per week
| over better code?
| alexpotato wrote:
| Zach Holman had a line to the effect of:
|
| "A good night's sleep is the best debugging tool"
| joenot443 wrote:
| I'm happy to hear you say this, and happy that in general the
| grind culture of the 2010s is being left behind.
|
| The combination of long hours, daily stimulants, and minimal
| planning can make for some very fast MVPs, and that's about
| it. Any time I've been in a position where I'm burning the
| midnight oil to make a deadline, I've always looked back at
| the code with great regret. The "fuck it, ship it" mentality
| makes for some really crappy software, it's nice that most
| people are coming around to this.
| closeparen wrote:
| Very productive people can get more done and therefore climb
| the ladder, earn higher bonuses, etc. without eating into their
| personal time in the way that their less productive colleagues
| might have to.
| ops wrote:
| My boss just suggested that I work less, while promising a 20%
| raise. People (and their situations) are different.
| najra wrote:
| Here in the Netherlands more and more companies (particularly
| small and young companies) will actually just measure output
| (vs just say they do as long as you warm your chair 40 hours a
| week). So they don't think me working less is better, but they
| also don't care as long as my work is done.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| How do they measure output?
| Maximus9000 wrote:
| How do you measure output of a software developer? Any
| measurement I've seen ([1] except the devops ones) just get
| gamed and become useless.
|
| [1] https://www.atlassian.com/devops/frameworks/devops-
| metrics
| e12e wrote:
| The irony here is that "40 hour week of 'productive' work"
| is also gamed/wrong...
|
| I think, given the right culture, other measures might work
| well. Not perhaps for a bonus structure, but for helping
| employees honestly evaluate how they're doing.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > get gamed and become useless
|
| ... and devolve into (actually measurable) number of hours
| in the chair.
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