Office Work Ethic In the IT Industry?

An anonymous reader writes "As a recent graduate entering industry for the first time at a large software and hardware company, I have been shocked at what seems to be a low standard of work ethic and professionalism at my place of employment, especially in this poor economy. For example, at my company, the large majority of developers seem to each individually waste — no exaggeration — hours of time on the clock every day talking about football, making personal phone calls, gossiping, taking long lunches, or browsing the Internet (including, yes, Slashdot!). Even some of our subcontractors waste time in this manner. Being the 'new guy,' I get stuck with much of the weekend and after-hours grunt work when we inevitably miss deadlines or produce poor code. I'm not in any position to go around telling others to use their time more efficiently. Management seems to tolerate it. I would like to ask Slashdot what methods others have used to deal with office environments such as this. Is my situation unique or is it common across the industry?"

Comments

People aren't robots

[AuMatar]

They aren't going to sit down, do 8 straight hours of work, then go home. You'll burn out even trying. People work better with short, frequent breaks taken at their own rate. So long as they get the work done, there's no problem. The only issue I see here is you- first off, grow some balls and refuse to work the extra hours. Trust me, you won't be rewarded for them. Secondly, unless someone isn't making their individual units of work, mind your own business. Or maybe even join in the next time they talk football, you might make a friend or two.

Re:People aren't robots

[Corporate Troll]

Mod parent up. This "Ask Slashdot" is a typical reaction of someone who is very very new to the workforce and doesn't understand (yet) it has a human component. During your studies, you don't work 8h straight either, but you don't notice. Well, most of them don't. I remember that, when I was a student, I could at most study 4h over the whole day. However, when I did that, I was concentrated. My neighbour claimed 10 to 12 hours studying per day. In reality I caught her more than once just staring out of the window, not really studying. For her that was part of "studying" but in reality it isn't.

Personally, I still adhere to the 4h/day effective work. If you have worked fully concentrated on your work for 4h during the work day, you did have a productive day. At least in my eyes.

Re:People aren't robots

[beelsebob]

This!

The Idea that if people are browsing the internet, or having a coffee break, they aren't working is *bull*. Programming is hard... It needs problems to go round in your head for a while before you settle on the right way to do something. Doing something idle is *exactly* what's needed to get that to happen.

Programmer productivity is not measured in: lines of code written
Programmer productivity is not measured in: amount of time spent not browsing the web

Programmer productivity *is* measured in: Actually solving problems at a reasonable rate.
Programmer productivity *is* measured in: Ability to tell people why solving problem x will take 5 days {more | less} than expected, *before* it's too late.

Re:People aren't robots

[RogueyWon]

I'm not necessarily sure you read the full question. From the information contained there, it sounds like the big part of the problem is that the work isn't getting done; at least not to the quality that's needed.

I've been in a similar situation once before, early in my career, when I came as a relatively junior member of staff into a part of my organisation that had a really toxic, time-wasting culture. And despite what you may think, ill-disciplined working habits were a big part of that. I understand that people like to structure their days differently and that properly managed, this can make people more productive, but there needs to be some form of control exercised to prevent people from crossing the line into taking liberties. By all means, show toleration of slightly eccentric working patterns, people listening to ipods at their desk and a moderate amount of personal web-browsing, provided it doesn't start to eat up most of the day. But if the job isn't getting done, remedial action is needed to break the culture. And yes, in the short term, this might involve imposing a draconian regime (with rigidly set hours, dress code etc), which can be relaxed slightly back to a more normal level once it's safe to do so.

The problem is that if you have come in at a junior level, there's almost nothing you can do, particularly if your management chain are complicit in the culture. Personally, when I found myself in that situation, I transferred sidewards to another part of the organisation after a few months; I didn't want my reputation to be tarnished, and was worried that the lack of self-discipline shown by my co-workers would rub off on me. About 18 months later, the head of the division in question was replaced, with his replacement apparently having a specific brief to clean the area up. So yes, working hours were suddenly enforced more rigidly than anywhere else in the organisation, dress codes were were imposed, music at desks was banned, all personal web-browsing was blocked and so on. About half of the staff resigned in protest (we weren't in a recession at the time), while the other half knuckled down and became more productive. 18 months after that, the area looked more or less like the rest of the wider organisation.

The message: sometimes "I work differently to other people" is just code for "I don't want to do any work". Learn to recognise the difference and stamp ruthlessly on the latter. Also, understand that if not monitored, the former can develop into the latter over time.

Oh, and working the odd late night or weekend can, in the right situation, do your career a power of good. Try not to make it a habit, but a willingness to do so when actually required will usually be noticed.

Re:People aren't robots

[aurispector]

You guys are a bunch of lazy assholes. The guy even says they miss deadlines and the code they produce is crap. Of course people rarely work full out for an entire day, but he's clearly describing a situation far worse than normal. The organization obviously lacks leadership and focus because tolerance of this sort of behavior comes from the top.

Why is it that coders typically seem to have enormous egos when it comes to their work. Everybody works hard. There's nothing special about coding. My workday include tasks that are both physically and mentally taxing, I often juggle several tasks at once and am held to a very high standard of quality. Man up, buckle down and produce because you don't work in a vacuum.

Re:People aren't robots

[Nursie]

This.

Try to code your ass off for 8h straight every day and you'll end up tired, burned out and making a huge number of mistakes where you haven't thought things through properly.

You can do it for a while after you first start working perhaps, I know I did and I was more productive for a while, but you can't keep it up forever and frankly if you can stay interested, inspired and creative for four hours a day your doing bloody well!

I know one or two people who are the exception to this. They seem to live for their work and revolve their lives around it much more than most. They are very highly valued but they are not always promoted first or given the best opportunities. They also seem to be the types with little to do when not at work.

Re:People aren't robots

[Nursie]

If you're missing deadlines then that's bad, sure.

But most people seem to work about half the day as far as I can tell, inside and outside of programming.

Re:People aren't robots

[Nursie]

I work with one who turns his brain to the whole thing, design, methodology, requirements, coding, testing. Highly, highly valuable. Not the world's best team lead, and no life to speak of outside of going to see his parents once in a while.

I'd hire him in a second, were I in charge of a company, and promote hime way up the technical chain. He's that good. But I don't want to be him.

Re:People aren't robots

[djjockey]

I'm amazed at the defensive attitude in most replies. Given the audience, maybe I shouldn't be, but it does seem the majority here are very defensive of their 'down time'. I accept that it is necessary. I do it myself. Read the news, make private calls, go on job interviews... or whatever. But I got the feeling that it's far above the normal in this environment. Regardless of whether this is normal or not, the best way to deal with it is probably to worry about your own output. If it's a good place to work, they'll notice you. If they don't appreciate it or notice, maybe it's really not a great place to start a career.

At my company, there is a strong relationship focus. We can "waste" a lot of time talking about stuff that is only moderately related to work, but it's all valuable.

At my company, discussing things like "what if our biggest competitor designed a flying car, what would we do", or "if we were to build a new datacentre what colour makes it go faster" is work. Gossiping, farmville/pet society/etc, long lunches, is not work, and should only be a minor part of the day. Valid down time yes, but dont' tell me it's work.

I've heard of the 5pm rule, where after 5 you stop work and just talk to people. And yes, there is still the talk of football or the stockmarket, oil prices water shortages, or whatever. My role is not specifically technical, but part of it is process and systems design, testing and improvement. Most days I would probably only contribute 4 of real output. 2 hours of thinking about solutions, 2 hours of dealing with day to day shit that comes up, and 1-2 hours of relationship building.

Oh, and the excuse that code is crap and deadlines are missed because the deadlines are a problem.... I'll buy that only after you stop bitching about your boss long enough to do some work.

Re:People aren't robots

[RogueyWon]

That an organisation is big and hasn't failed yet is absolutely no guarantee that it isn't headed to fail now. I think that is one lesson we can absolutely take from the events we've seen in the wider economy over the last two years.

More broadly, it's by no means uncommon for organisations to lose focus as they grow, and for the original culture that made them successful to be diluted, or for smaller sub-cultures of failure to develop within parts of the organisation. I don't work for Microsoft (or indeed in the tech sector), but I've certainly heard many plausible accounts from people who do of this happening there.

And is it the submitter's problem? Yes. Of course, as a junior member of the team, he's not going to be the one who fixes it, but if the area he works in has a bad reputation within his company, or if his company has a bad reputation within the marketplace, then this can and will impact on his career prospects further down the line (as well as making him more vulnerable to layoffs). He needs exercise some good old-fashioned self-interest and weigh up his options. If he can't give up the income and has absolutely no other job prospects (such as an internal move to a better part of the company, or even a move to another company in the same field), then he may just need to hang in there for the time being and protect his own reputation as well as he's able to. Sometimes, being the only useful, helpful person in a team full of idiots can actually be beneficial, in the short-term. You might stand out more to colleagues elsewhere, who may try to poach you. The most important thing is to avoid falling into the same bad habits. It's generally a good idea in the workplace to try to fit in and get along with your immediate co-workers. However, there will always be some cultures and cliques where thee last thing you want to do is fit in (a lesson most people should have learned by high school). Tolerating some unpleasantness now may turn out to be worth it further down the road.

Re:People aren't robots

[RogueyWon]

One thing I've noticed over the years is that factors such as dress code can have a significant impact on how people behave around the office. You take people who aren't used to wearing suits and make them do so, and you pull them out of their comfort zone to a degree. You put them on edge and send the message that things are different. This is vital if you're going to start breaking down bad workplace habits. Of course, there's a lot more to it than this, but a competent manager tackling a really broken workplace will know that the first job is to destroy the old culture, so that something more functional can be put on top of it.

You can't keep people on edge like this for too long; it has its own negative impacts upon performance. The trick is to use it as a short(ish), sharp shock. Once the day job is actually getting done properly, you can let things relax a bit again, and let people get back into their comfort zone. If you've done things properly, their comfort zone should now overlap with where the organisation actually needs them to be if they're to be productive. For example, it might now involve a bit of web-browsing first thing in the morning and an hour or so over lunch, whereas before it was taking up the entire day.

Methods like this are almost always unpopular and never result in the manager being liked. In fact, what often happens is that when the manager does start to slack up, the employees read it as a victory. You'll also get a good few employees who will just up and quit (though these are often the ones you'd want to lose anyway). But a competent manager (and yes, not every manager is competent) will know when he can chalk his actions up as a success.

Re:People aren't robots

[SuurMyy]

I used to smoke and very often I figured things out when I got up from my desk and went for a smoke. Another old regular was that I figured things out when I was walking home, about 300 meters along the way. Nowadays a common time is in the morning brushing my teeth. So there's a lot of stuff happening in the background and what's on the foreground may be distracting. I also often take the old pen and paper way when I really need to design something or when I need to figure out a hard problem. For some reason when the problems are really hard changing your approach can help.

Re:People aren't robots

[SuurMyy]

To me it seems that the sustainable maximum of actual real work is about six hours a day. Anything beyond that and it starts to get uncomfortable and uncomfortable is bad in the long run. Also, I've noticed that the harder I work the less tolerance I have for just sitting around when I have nothing more to give. And sure, it depends a lot on the tasks. The more routine they are the more you can do. If it's really new/hard stuff, four hours a day may be the maximum. I believe that developers are most productive when working about 30 hours a week.

Re:People aren't robots

[FShort]

Nice attitude by that contractor. No wonder IT jobs are being shipped overseas to people that are willing to work twice as hard for 1/5th the pay.

Re:People aren't robots

[mcvos]

I believe that developers are most productive when working about 30 hours a week.

That's why I want to work only 4 days a week. Gives me one workday to handle private stuff and hang with my son. It's amazing how many companies still object to someone working 4 days. They save 20% on my salary, and I really think they get more than 80% of a full week's productivity.

Re:People aren't robots

[mcvos]

Of course when I spend the day in some coffee shop working on my own projects, I find myself to be much more focused and productive. Probably because it feels a lot more like "getting something done" and less like "putting in my hours against a charge number."

You're more productive when you're working on something you care about. Which is also a valuable lesson for companies: they need to make their employers care about the project they're working on. They need to feel involved, and not just cogs in a machine. Make their input count. That sort of stuff.

A co-worker at my previous job said his work there felt like free time. He happily worked nights and weekends, because he cared about it and he got to make a lot of decisions on how it should be done. It felt like it was his private project. That kind of feeling is what management should try to instill in their employees. (There's a downside of course: he frequently ignored the CEO because something else was more important right now, and besides, he knew a better way to do it. He could be a real bastard about that too, but he delivered the goods, so nobody complained.)

Re:People aren't robots

[ultranova]

Nice attitude by that contractor. No wonder IT jobs are being shipped overseas to people that are willing to work twice as hard for 1/5th the pay.

Yeah. They had real work ethic in the early days of Industrial Revolution: 16-hour work days and the rest of the time spent on-call in case of fire or something, none of this "safety regulation" stuff, the manager could ask you to bend over (literally) anytime to get himself a little extra morality boost perk, and the children also worked rather than waste time in school or playing! And when you got injured or crippled by those machines with no profit-eating safety devices, you didn't suck on public teat by expecting to be fed, no: you starved to death so your betters didn't need to pay taxes. Then Marx went and invented communism, and suddenly everyone is afraid workers rather than treating them as the subhuman wage slaves they are, and giving them things like rises and social security!

Good thing we can outsource to India, China and Africa to help return us to those glory days when hads were gods and had-nots were nothing.

Websites

[mxh83]

Many people browse IT websites at work. In this industry, how to you propose we keep ourselves updated? You sound like one of those irritating prudes who can't understand how the normal world works.

Get use to it !

[ls671]

It's the same in every field of activity (banks, everything), not only in IT.

I admit it might be hard to realize at first but you should get use to it eventually ! ;-)

Oblig XKCD

[El_Muerte_TDS]

http://xkcd.com/303/

I'm starting to wonder if there is a case where no XKCD comic applies.

It is simple supply and demand

[Colin Smith]

The more real work which is done, the less it's worth. As a supplier of work it makes no sense for you to reduce the value of that work.

 

Normal

[CountHiss]

This is just the way it goes - nobody is able to do the same routine job they've been doing for a while for more than say a cumulative 6 hours a day. Taking a break to say read slashdot (= keeping up with developments), socialising, talking about football (= good for teambuilding!) relaxes the mind and will allow for another few hours of good, concentrated work. If you want to make a career, better to join in occasionally, otherwise you'll be the odd one out, the one who won't be part of the team, and, importantly, the snotty just-out-of-school kid who thinks he knows better that everyone loves to hate. Which in end-effect you are because a. you have no experience, b. no life-experience and c. you don't keep up with developments, whether it be professional (slashdot reading!) or social (talking about football, the families and so forth). So, relax, get used to it and participate as much as you can without screwing up your own portion of the work.

Not unique across industry. Actually S.O.P.

[VShael]

In my experience, this is common. I've been at both ends. The weekend working newbie employee, and the casual relaxed contractor not busting my ass.

There are a number of reasons for the perceived slack of attention that you notice. One main one, which relates to something you don't necessarily learn in college, is that even in a technical environment surrounded by socially awkward geeks/nerds, there is a necessity for social bonding. It can make the work day less stressful, lead to cross-pollination of ideas, outside perspectives on problems you've been working with, etc...

We tend not to value these things when we're fresh faced and eager to code 40 hours straight. Give me a problem and let me solve it. But the older you get, the more you realise the advantages in it. For one thing, as we get older, our brains require some distraction to avoid burnout. Even when coding, sometimes you need to take a break before the subconscious can solve a problem you've been consciously wrestling with.

Basically, there's a reason management tolerate it. They've learned that if they crack down on this sort of behaviour, and start clock watching themselves (monitoring lunch breaks, toilet breaks, net usage, phone usage, etc...) the company suffers. Either because humans will strive to find ways around rules they perceive as unnecessarily restrictive, or the really talented guys get depressed and move somewhere else.

My 40 hour working week these days is very different to my 80 hour working week 15 years ago. I may not produce as much code, solve as many bugs, etc... But I have a good idea of everything that's going on in my department. I am regularly asked for advise by colleagues on technical matters. I know which of my co-workers are good people, who are the experts and in which fields, and which are assholes. I know who can be relied upon, and who can rely on me. Basically, I'm better at being able to bring my years of experience to bear on different problems. And that doesn't require me to knuckle down and concentrate fully on these problems for 40 hours in isolation.

Dont judge too quickly

[PeteV]

I've been on both sides of this, as a developer and as a manager: first off, its wholly impractical and counter-productive to try and control every thing staff do. The more controls you impose, the more time you spend policing the rules - and all that does is make for a miserable unproductive environment. One of the first rules of a "happy" productive team, a happy engineering team, is mutual trust between those doing the work and those responsible for ensuring it gets done - its a quid pro quo. And at the end of the day, in my experience, good engineers WANT to work, want to solve problems, want to design, they/we get a kick from it, job satisfaction if you will, pride in a job well done. And every single engineer needs "think" time - chaining people to a rigid set of work methods really doesnt work (unless you are working on a production line). THAT said, it is certainly true that some offices/teams are poor, thats the nature of things - and if productivity is low and people are just taking the p*** then sooner or later the manager gets replaced and the situation is rectified or the good engineers move on. My teams get total freedom, the senior designers have the flex to work from home too. But i know exactly who is and who is not productive - and I get rid of engineers who dont pull their weight - its that simple (and very rare). And that never causes an issue with the others, and nor did it when I was a "grunt" - in fact, you dont want idiots in around you who dont do any work. Gauging productivity is the managers job and responsibility - they should be able to do it, they should have a range of choices/skills/options that allow them to improve it when needed. As a new person with little industry experience your assessment may be premature - I would say dont jump to instant conclusions or be too judgemental, it may well be you've landed in a poor office - and in due course you will either understand that to be the case and move on to a better place, or you will adjust. Bottom line, if you're unhappy and remain unhappy, find somewhere else.

Re:Then maybe they're just no good

[aurispector]

Bullshit. The only reason they can get away with acting like "keepers of the secret flame" is because "outsiders" don't have the tools to adequately measure productivity. Nobody ever told me to take 10 off for every 20; if I did that I would have flunked out. If you can't hack more than 20 minutes of work at a time you're either lazy or stupid.

My advice of the author of the article is to start looking for a new job NOW. Find someplace where the company culture includes a work ethic because productivity means profit and profit means paychecks.

Reading /. != slacking

[Shag]

Working as a developer back in the 1900s, I had free subscriptions to some relevant magazines. Yes, the time I spent reading them was time I didn't spend coding, but it meant I kept abreast of developments in the field, which was a Good Thing as far as my employers were concerned.

Slashdot's "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters" are generally more useful, and certainly more timely, than those magazines ever were. I'm not in IT any more, but I'm close enough to it that people still appreciate and value me knowing what's up in technology.

Don't worry about it

[Inda]

Something I learned a long, long time ago was don't worry about your peers. Just do your work and don't worry about anyone else. Don't go crying to your boss, he'll already know the score.

Turn up on time, do your work, go home, get paid. You'll be happier with this attitude.

You probably already know that life is not fair and some people seem to get all the breaks. Life is not fair. Take it on the chin. Play the cards you have in your hand.

Re:This isn't 1999.

[CAIMLAS]

As opposed to some user id and account based upon a throw away email address?

Someone with a UID under 100,000 probably isn't considering the address a throw-away, on account of their UID being from pre-dotcom bust... and boom. Or, at least, close to it.

give this guy a few more years in the workforce...

[Dr_Ken]

...and we'll see what he says then. It always looks different when you're outside looking in. Talk to us after your first layoff kiddo.

Why are you asking us?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Ask the people at your workplace. I keep an eye on various relevant technical and social issues with Slashdot, and it keeps me on my toes to chat with sharp people here who know about other fields. A certain amount of slack at work while my code is compiling or my brain is working on other fields seems harmless, and I normally put in plenty of after hours work to cover any missed worktime. Conversely, you may be right about people slacking off: it can be due to many reasons, such as genuine frustration at not being allowed to do anything useful or watching their good ideas being thrown out by an incompetent manager.

Also, IT work is often like firefighting. You spend a lot of time cooking meals and reading magazines and keeping yourself and your equipment fit, and then at disaster time you and your equipment are supposed to go all out with skills and _plans_ to fix things and recover data. That on-call time can be valuable, too.

It starts from the top

[RedCuber]

I'm sure this will probably be an unpopular comment.. but it starts from the Top. I've recently joined a large investment bank in London (transferred back from the US) and it's IT dept 'was' run in a very similar manor. Lots of screwing around, no customer focus and a second-rate service. If management are willing to tolerate it, and are not willing to put in the extra hours/effort to fix the culture of the department, nothing will change. I'm management and it's a continual up-hill struggle to motivate not only the team, but also the other managers. Happy to report though, we're making progress. If i were the grad, either work your ass off to rise above the clutter, or ride the wave of bone-idol. Good luck!

One of my first jobs

[SlappyBastard]

We were openly encouraged by the boss -- a lesser geek himself -- to use company time and equipment to screw off. To his perspective, if it encouraged loyalty and relaxation while dealing with tough projects, so be it.

I've seen some very tightly wound geeks in my time. Especially among the talented ones. I think if a business has to err on this issue, it's probably wiser to err on the side of relaxation.

IT vs. factory

[thewiz]

You're entering the Information Technology field, not a factory to produce widgets.
IT requires creative thinking and, in my experience, creativity comes when you think and create a solution to a problem.
The next stage is implementing the solution via coding, building, or other processes.

What you seem to be expecting is everyone bent over their keyboard, hammering away at the keys, for 8 straight hours a day. That's the mentality of someone who works on an assembly line.

Re:Hang Gliding while being paid to write code...

[vrmlguy]

The other problem is that the work ethic has slipped off quite a bit

The work ethic has been slipping since WW2 ended. Organizations (not just companies) got so large that a manager could take actions adversely affecting thousands of anonymous employees with impunity. As managers were rewarded for these actions, others copied and amplified their actions. In the 70s, the phrase became popular, "Don't love your company because it can't love you back." This is true; the only time to love an organization is if it has fewer than ~150 people. Any larger and it becomes impossible for a person to know everyone, meaning that it's impossible to care about everyone. Since the 70s, the process has only accelerated. To chose just one example, Bernie Madoff was, by all accounts, a decent man. The only people he swindled were strangers, so he tried to protect his family and friends as things fell apart. Had he only been allowed to invest the money of his friends, I doubt he would have even started his scheme. As it is obvious that the people at the top don't care about the people at the bottom, the people at the bottom have reciprocated. No one cases about doing a good job, just about doing whatever's needed to avoid getting fired.

On a more positive note, there was a recent TED Talk about new social organizations starting to emerge. The speaker (I can't find the talk via Google right now) was mostly discussing NGOs, but his remarks also apply to Open Source and other movements. New organizations are being created that are remaining small and tightly focused. The membership is committed to their organization's ideals, and everyone in the organization knows everyone else well enough that no one can hide misbehavior. Because of this, these new organizations are able to accomplish things (humanitarian or coding) that larger ones cannot.

Re:I am a writer!

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason people are asking you want you do is because they do not know you. The reason they do not know you is because you are new there. The reason you are new there is because the last party you were at you gave that same answer when asked what you do and they never invited you back for other parties.