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I am kinda tiring of seeing this rationalization. Don't you see, it's on the company to fire you if your productivity is low! Feel free to do nothing or as litt

I am kinda tiring of seeing this rationalization. Don't you see, it's on the company to fire you if your productivity is low! Feel free to do nothing or as little as possible! That's such trash. If you're in software and are being honest you know we are not being paid for our output. Where are you working where the understanding is that if you get assigned a task for the week and finish it in one hour, it is common knowledge between you and your management chain that you have the rest of the week off and the CEO says "nice, see ya!"? Where your team says the same and doesn't look at you sideways? No, we aren't being paid for output, we are being paid for being as productive as we can (sustainably) for the generally accepted hours (9-5 or whatever your company says), and continually improving our skills. There is a general extreme difficulty to measure and track and enforce that (because as we all know, estimation is hard and shit happens) which is where trust comes in and why companies are so vulnerable to people working less and lying about it -- it's super difficult to verify.

mckn1ght 2y ago
Wanted to chime back in to say I agree with you here and on your previous reply. I should’ve been clearer but I was talking about if the resting/vesting is endemic. Yes, there are always going to be people who will skate by as easily as possible. Hard to avoid completely in a gold rush, but I do believe that a company with better culture can suss it out better. I do think there’s a limit to how much more work should be taken on once you finish planned tasks, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything either. People saying that are, like you said, just rationalizing their own lazy/exploitative attitude. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect someone to try to get ahead, and keep a company as competitive as possible, if they’re able to finish tasks faster and still staying within a healthy set of working hours. Nobody is asking for 80 hour weeks here. 20 is just unreasonable as 80 when you’re making a ”full time“ tech salary. If you’re vesting, it’s in your best interests to stay competitive. Otherwise you’re riding on your coworkers’ coattails. All while probably complaining about the ultracapitalism of the C-suite. They’d step into their shoes in a heartbeat.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >I do think there’s a limit to how much more work should be taken on once you finish planned tasks, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything either. People saying that are, like you said, just rationalizing their own lazy/exploitative attitude. You can call it rationalizing and exploitative, I can call it tit for tat on a skewed power dynamic. I've never been rewarded and have in fact been punished for taking the initiative, so I learned to just lay low. I'm laid off either way, what's the point? >if they’re able to finish tasks faster and still staying within a healthy set of working hours. spoiler: it's never a healthy set of hours. You're describing a just world and I've seen those same 80 hours workers laid off after draining themselves dry as well. Loyalty isn't rewarded. >Nobody is asking for 80 hour weeks here. 20 is just unreasonable as 80 when you’re making a ”full time“ tech salary. if you want hours, pay hourly. It won't fix the issue here, but the whole point of salary is that you trust workers to be available in working hours and get assigned tasks done, not have a but in a seat for X hours a day. If someone finishes in 20 hours I don't see why they are "rewarded" with twice the work for not twice the pay. You can increase their workload if you want in the next meeting, but well: that's a good "reward" huh? >If you’re vesting, it’s in your best interests to stay competitive. Otherwise you’re riding on your coworkers’ coattails. I'm much closer to someone working 80 hours than a vester, to my dismay. But as a hot take: not every software company needs top engineers. If you can coast and make widgets for 20-30 years, that's fine. Not everyone is going to have the same passion for their career. But passion doesn't correlate with productivity, that myth needs to die.
  - mckn1ght 2y ago
    > the whole point of salary is that you trust workers to be available in working hours and get assigned tasks done This is becoming a popular framing but I see no reason it should be accepted as ground truth. If you’re paid a full time salary, you can be reasonably expected to actually do work, full time. > If someone finishes in 20 hours I don't see why they are "rewarded" with twice the work for not twice the pay. Because you already signed a contract saying you’d get paid X on a full time basis. Maybe try adding a doubling clause to get to 40 hours per week and see how it’s received. I’m not even opposed to taking down weeks. I do that. Sometimes life gets in the way, someone’s you feel less motivated. I’m not talking about sick/PTO, I’m acknowledging that nobody can fire on all cylinders all the time. I also have weeks where I am on fire and get a lot done because I just want to. But it seems to me that if this happens: > You can increase their workload if you want in the next meeting You’d be upset, or deceitful, in order to maintain your half-time effort always and forever, which I don’t think is ok. Someone above mentioned working second jobs, which yes, is working hard, I’ve done it, but if it’s being hidden from someone that thinks you’re working full time, that’s not ok. In fact it distorts market expectations with invisible parameters. It makes it worse for everyone else. It sounds like your work situation sucks right now, I get that, I’ve worked bad jobs. But I think you would be wrong to carry such a cynical and jaded mindset into a place that actually respects you and wants to work together. Granted those are very hard to find, and in any company of more than like 20 people you are guaranteed to run into an asshole and the best you can hope for is to find a little oasis of a team within. Just don’t take advantage of that team if you’re ever lucky enough to find it.
Spivak 2y ago
> it's on the company to fire you if your productivity is low That's not what I'm saying at all, I'm saying that if your company is happy with your level of output and it's in line with the rest of your teammates then why would they fire you? On principal? I absolutely work 20-25 hour weeks most weeks and I just got the highest marks on my performance review, a bonus for it, and a promotion last year. Why in god's name would I work harder? What could I possibly gain by setting the bar higher for myself? My employer is extremely happy with the value/$ they get out of me and I'm extremely happy with the work life balance it affords me. And my team doesn't look at me sideways, folks duck out early afternoon all the time. My department doesn't even schedule meetings after 3pm because people will be gone. And I can't speak for other teams but my direct manager has a rule to not even bother putting in PTO if it's less than two consecutive days off. And my work bestie does 2-3 hours of away-from-desk charity work during the day and he's our resident 10x developer. I realize where I work is essentially a unicorn of sanity that actually believes in work smarter not harder but it's hard to look at other workplaces and say we're the crazy ones. You are nonetheless right that it's an informal policy that our CTO/CEO look the other way on but it's hard to argue that it isn't incredible for retention.

mckn1ght 2y ago

Wanted to chime back in to say I agree with you here and on your previous reply. I should’ve been clearer but I was talking about if the resting/vesting is endemic. Yes, there are always going to be people who will skate by as easily as possible. Hard to avoid completely in a gold rush, but I do believe that a company with better culture can suss it out better. I do think there’s a limit to how much more work should be taken on once you finish planned tasks, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything either. People saying that are, like you said, just rationalizing their own lazy/exploitative attitude. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect someone to try to get ahead, and keep a company as competitive as possible, if they’re able to finish tasks faster and still staying within a healthy set of working hours. Nobody is asking for 80 hour weeks here. 20 is just unreasonable as 80 when you’re making a ”full time“ tech salary. If you’re vesting, it’s in your best interests to stay competitive. Otherwise you’re riding on your coworkers’ coattails. All while probably complaining about the ultracapitalism of the C-suite. They’d step into their shoes in a heartbeat.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>I do think there’s a limit to how much more work should be taken on once you finish planned tasks, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything either. People saying that are, like you said, just rationalizing their own lazy/exploitative attitude. You can call it rationalizing and exploitative, I can call it tit for tat on a skewed power dynamic. I've never been rewarded and have in fact been punished for taking the initiative, so I learned to just lay low. I'm laid off either way, what's the point? >if they’re able to finish tasks faster and still staying within a healthy set of working hours. spoiler: it's never a healthy set of hours. You're describing a just world and I've seen those same 80 hours workers laid off after draining themselves dry as well. Loyalty isn't rewarded. >Nobody is asking for 80 hour weeks here. 20 is just unreasonable as 80 when you’re making a ”full time“ tech salary. if you want hours, pay hourly. It won't fix the issue here, but the whole point of salary is that you trust workers to be available in working hours and get assigned tasks done, not have a but in a seat for X hours a day. If someone finishes in 20 hours I don't see why they are "rewarded" with twice the work for not twice the pay. You can increase their workload if you want in the next meeting, but well: that's a good "reward" huh? >If you’re vesting, it’s in your best interests to stay competitive. Otherwise you’re riding on your coworkers’ coattails. I'm much closer to someone working 80 hours than a vester, to my dismay. But as a hot take: not every software company needs top engineers. If you can coast and make widgets for 20-30 years, that's fine. Not everyone is going to have the same passion for their career. But passion doesn't correlate with productivity, that myth needs to die.
- mckn1ght 2y ago
  > the whole point of salary is that you trust workers to be available in working hours and get assigned tasks done This is becoming a popular framing but I see no reason it should be accepted as ground truth. If you’re paid a full time salary, you can be reasonably expected to actually do work, full time. > If someone finishes in 20 hours I don't see why they are "rewarded" with twice the work for not twice the pay. Because you already signed a contract saying you’d get paid X on a full time basis. Maybe try adding a doubling clause to get to 40 hours per week and see how it’s received. I’m not even opposed to taking down weeks. I do that. Sometimes life gets in the way, someone’s you feel less motivated. I’m not talking about sick/PTO, I’m acknowledging that nobody can fire on all cylinders all the time. I also have weeks where I am on fire and get a lot done because I just want to. But it seems to me that if this happens: > You can increase their workload if you want in the next meeting You’d be upset, or deceitful, in order to maintain your half-time effort always and forever, which I don’t think is ok. Someone above mentioned working second jobs, which yes, is working hard, I’ve done it, but if it’s being hidden from someone that thinks you’re working full time, that’s not ok. In fact it distorts market expectations with invisible parameters. It makes it worse for everyone else. It sounds like your work situation sucks right now, I get that, I’ve worked bad jobs. But I think you would be wrong to carry such a cynical and jaded mindset into a place that actually respects you and wants to work together. Granted those are very hard to find, and in any company of more than like 20 people you are guaranteed to run into an asshole and the best you can hope for is to find a little oasis of a team within. Just don’t take advantage of that team if you’re ever lucky enough to find it.

Spivak 2y ago

> it's on the company to fire you if your productivity is low That's not what I'm saying at all, I'm saying that if your company is happy with your level of output and it's in line with the rest of your teammates then why would they fire you? On principal? I absolutely work 20-25 hour weeks most weeks and I just got the highest marks on my performance review, a bonus for it, and a promotion last year. Why in god's name would I work harder? What could I possibly gain by setting the bar higher for myself? My employer is extremely happy with the value/$ they get out of me and I'm extremely happy with the work life balance it affords me. And my team doesn't look at me sideways, folks duck out early afternoon all the time. My department doesn't even schedule meetings after 3pm because people will be gone. And I can't speak for other teams but my direct manager has a rule to not even bother putting in PTO if it's less than two consecutive days off. And my work bestie does 2-3 hours of away-from-desk charity work during the day and he's our resident 10x developer. I realize where I work is essentially a unicorn of sanity that actually believes in work smarter not harder but it's hard to look at other workplaces and say we're the crazy ones. You are nonetheless right that it's an informal policy that our CTO/CEO look the other way on but it's hard to argue that it isn't incredible for retention.