Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
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.
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.
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.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
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.)
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.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
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.