Slashdot Mirror
Workplace Monotony?
bcorrigan78 asks: "I love programming, however I work in a network operations center with very few co-workers where the air conditioners can just about put you to sleep. Besides music, what do all of you programmers do to avoid workplace monotony?"
I see you've picked up on one of them... post here!
I touch computers in naughty places
I get more reading done during work than any other time of the day.
And you can get them from your local public library.
I recomend this cd player
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Seriously, make it a point to periodically get up from your desk, for whatever reason - get something to drink, hit the restroom, actually talk to a co-worker (as opposed to email/phone/IM). Just the act of getting out of your cube for 3-5 minutes can do wonders for you.
Hard industrial music, lots and lots of black coffee and cigarettes.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
1) Listen to DVDs...I find it's more interesting than music and not more intrusive. I minimize them and just listen to the sound, flipping over for the good parts.
2) Write code. Ever wanted to learn a graphics library? New language? Check out SDL, neat little cross platform graphics library. Write a PacMan clone to learn it.
3) Read news. I read a lot of news during the slow times.
4) Gameboy. The SP is pretty small, would probably go unnoticed or be mistaken for a PDA.
--trb
Try to work arround your company firewall... its MS stuff and its fun to see how our IT thinks some things can't be done.
I currently have the same problem as you. I VNC into my box at home and do stuff. Browse torrent sites, etc... I also run a radio station for everyone in the department (Computing Services for my university) and people making requests and such make things interesting (don't have that one... hmmm, lemme find it and throw it on the playlist) AIM keeps things interesting, as does sites like MySpace, Orkut, and even LiveJournal. Slashdot, fark, and others keep me sane. an occasional game of solitaire, stepping outside for a cigerette (a vanilla clove is excellent for killing stress, I have to say), Other projects you have more interest in: I'm currently in the process of learning PHP so I may make my own dynamic site for my photography... that and working on a short story that gets less and less "short" by the week... Online photoshop contests are fun too :)
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
1) I know you mentioned "besides music", but that really is one of the best ways. One thing I've noticed is that, being a programmer, *really* hard industrial really helps me get into "the zone" while coding, and trance just makes the hours fly by. Apoptygma Berserk, VNV Nation, Oakenfold, etc.
2) Get a laptop, watch DVDs or music videos on it while working. I did this for years in my younger years. Helps boredom, but not the greatest for productivity.
3) Someone brought this up before, and it's an awesome time-suck. Learn a new language/technology.. expand your knowledgebase. Employers generally encourage this (in my experience).
4) If all else fails, and the job is just insanely boring, the company won't let you listen to music, watch DVDs, research new fields, read news, whatnot.. find yourself another job. I had this happen once a few years back with a job they sold me as a dev position, and turned out to be configuration management. After 3 months of total boredom, I moved to another job.
Hope that helps!
-- Jinsaku
-- Jinsaku
I work on my juggling for a few minutes here and there. It means I have to stand up and move around which has to be a good thing.
:)
My five ball cascade is improving too
Cheers,
Roger
Do you have any better hostages?
Well, you've clearly found one outlet...
/. -- take a few minutes to let the clutch slip and relax your focus. Walk around a bit, decide what to do in the evening when you get home, etc.
Other ideas:
* Eat lunch out. You don't even have to eat in a restaurant every day (which isn't particularly healthy/cheap) -- you can bring lunch and meet friends at a park. The point is to get some solid social interaction in the middle of the day.
* Take mental breaks. Don't always go from work to a game, or even ranting on
* Stay hydrated, and don't eat a big lunch. And get enough sleep at night. You'll get more work done while your working, and more fun done when you're taking a break. You know dehydration is a pretty common cause of sleepiness, right? Of course, not getting enough sleep is also a major cause. If you aren't fighting off sleep, you'll be able to get more involved in your work (and thus less bored), plus you'll get more done, and have more time you can spend doing other stuff without swamping your productivity.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Listen to old time radio shows (OTR). They offer drama and excitement, and you don't have to take your eyes off the screen. You can download MP3 of shows from many places.
I find it is great when coding, but not as good when reading text like emails.
If you're finding your workdays consistently boring then you're in the wrong job. Find one that's more suited to your interests.
Half a bottle of good Scotch every morning before work is your solution of routine. You won't get much work done and you might even get fired, loose your family, and sell your car and house to buy alcohol, but hey!, no routine there!
Employment can be a subsidized education. Take advantage of the free time.
Of course, barring that, find a bunch of smaller message boards and alternately check them. You can even be a rabid republican on one and a bleeding heart democrat on another.
Here's some suggestions I have not yet encountered in this thread:
:-)
- Go out during lunchtime. You will get some fresh air.
- Even better: if your office has a shower (in the Netherlands, this is required for large companies), you can do some sports during lunch breaks. I used to run 5 miles twice a week in the afternoon. It kept me awake during long, boring work days. Afterwards, you *do* need the shower. Otherwise your colleagues will complain.
- If possible, ask your boss for something else to do. Help your colleague with *his* project for an hour or so. It will shift your attention for a while. Less boredom. Works for me.
der Joachim
Geek runner, motorcyclist and professional know-it-all
I always carry around my pick set and a masterlock. When things get slow at the office, and when I am sitting on the train to and from work I practice the fine art of bypassing locks.
Make up a list of other things you want to do. Here are some thoughts:
Email an old friend.
Add something to your website.
Research a weekend trip.
Check out a new gadget via web research.
Read some trade/industrial websites in your field.
Research something of interest to you, your hobbies or a potential interest.
Then when you have that list, just every 20-30 minutes (or whatever interval) switch over to one of those tasks for 5-10 minutes, and then switch back to your work tasks. The day will go *MUCH* faster.
If the job is really that bad I would work on tasks or accomplishments that move you to a different position, whatever that may be but it's your list. It will be like giving you positive feedback at regular intervals. The drudgery should just slide by.
Hope that helps!
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
A few years back, the hype surrounding Extreme Programming got me curious, so I tried the style of development known as Test-Driven Development. It makes development less frustrating and more fun, so I'm a lot less likely to wander off to places like Slashdot.
Basically, the way it works is you sit down, figure out what you're going to do next, and write a few line of test code that don't pass yet. You write a little code to make the test pass. Then you expand the test a little, and make that pass. And so on. There are two main rules: don't write production code without a broken test, and try to keep the time between cycles pretty short, say under 10 minutes.
The short cycles and alternating viewpoints make it feel something like playing chess against yourself. Since everything you write is tested, bug rates are very low, and using the debugger becomes very rare. And although I thought my code was pretty good before, I think it's better now. By starting out thinking how it looks on the outside, the APIs are cleaner and easier to use.
Create little homemade darts using just office supplies and see how many I can get to stick in the ceiling.
Your question here seems to be very poorly structured, and the range of answers people are giving reflect that. Many of the suggestions (read, watch DVDs) assume that the problem is that too much of the time the job is merely to be physically present. If what you need is an answer to how to fill up the idle hours, and you love to program, I'd suggest that no NOC I've ever seen has all the tools that it really needs. Consider what kinds of tools would make your job easier when problems occur (or tools that can analysis the available data and identify potential problems before they occur) and write them.
If your problem is that you're already programming and you've got plenty to do, but there's no "human contact" in the way the job is done, try to add some. It might be as simple as adding informal design reviews -- "Hey, Bob, can we get together for 30 minutes on Tuesday so I can describe how I'm structuring this, and get your opinion about it?" When I had programming tasks, I always found that having such reviews sometimes led to people pointing out better ways to do a task, and always clarified my own thinking about what I was doing.
1. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
2. Send e-mail to the rest of the company telling them exactly what you're doing. For example: "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the bathroom."
3. Every time someone asks you to do something, anything, ask them if they want fries with that.
4. Put your trash can on your desk. Label it "IN."
5. Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names. "That's a good point, Spike." "No, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Sparky."
6. High-light your shoes. Tell people you haven't lost them as much since you did this.
7. While sitting at your desk, soak your fingers in Palmolive liquid. Call everyone Madge.
8. Hang mosquito netting around your cubicle. When you emerge to get coffee or a printout or whatever, slap yourself randomly the whole way.
9. Put a chair facing a printer. Sit there all day and tell people you're waiting for your document.
10. Send e-mail back and forth to yourself engaging yourself in an intellectual debate. Forward the mail to a co-worker and ask her to settle the disagreement.
11. Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair-dancing.
12. Feign an unnatural and hysterical fear of staplers.
13. Send e-mail messages saying there's free pizza or donuts or cake in the lunchroom. When people drift back to work complaining that they found none, lean back, pat your stomach and say, "Oh, you've got to be faster than that."
14. Put decaf in the coffeemaker for three weeks. Once everyone has withdrawn from caffeine addiction, switch to espresso.
15. Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits. Wear them one day after you boss does. (This is especially effective if your boss is of a different gender than you.)
Find work things to do. You are being paid to work. Revisit some things you've already done to see if you can make them better. Identify problems and draft proposals. Get motivated. Help a co-worker with a project they are working on. Read up on the company. How it's doing. Identify waste. Check your machines out to make sure they are patched correctly. Concentrate on a new programming language or research a new technology that can help you get a raise or promotion. Treat work like the ultimate competitive game. Learn the game well. Worst case, if you REALLY can't find something to do, ask your boss for something to do. They rock at handing out work.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
From a distance, English text in a text editor looks (or can be made to look) very much like source code. Hammer out the words when you've nothing better to do, mail it to yourself at home, clean it up and send it off to a publisher. You too could be paid to write a best-seller!
Of course, if there is an intellectual property rights agreement between you and your employer, you may find that they can fire you for doing this, or (worse) that the book's copyright belongs to them. If the book is successful, they might sue you for a share of the royalties.
I'm writing a book in this manner. I use my own PDA for it, so the book is neither stored on nor passes through any computer that the company controls. I write only during my lunch hour and when I'm travelling to and from work (I commute by train), so I'm never writing when I'm supposed to be working.
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
i'll be getting my coat then... adios
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]