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

Peter.... how's it going?

[ipX]

Get ready to work Sundays.

Re:Peter.... how's it going?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I'll take my signals at work from Thomas Anderson (Neo) rather than Peter. Remember when Neo gets that call from Morpheus that allows him to escape the cubicle farm? Peter Gibbons should have taken THAT call.
Come to think of it, can you imagine a mashup mix of "Office Space" and "The Matrix"...that would be awesome! Lumbergh could team up with Agent Smith. Lawrence (Peter's next door neighbor) could make inappropriate remarks about Trinity's boobs at various times to break the tension.... I'd pay money to see THAT movie over Avatar any day!

Re:Peter.... how's it going?

[cashman73]

Which is why you're, "a big 'pussy'. Which is also probably why you're still working at Initech to begin with." ;-)

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

[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

[Chrisq]

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.

I was taking second level "window studies" as a subsid to my sociology degree you insensitive clod.

Re:People aren't robots

[xaxa]

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.

Clearly I learnt something useful on my placement year :-).

One of the contractors said to me, "do you realise they only employ you because you cost half what I cost? You're currently working twice as hard as well, next time I walk past your desk I ought to see Facebook, not Java".

(I was also surprised that working was less stressful than studying. Of course, I had less free time -- I was at work from 9:30 to 17:30, plus I spent longer travelling, but at 17:30 I would walk out and not need to worry about work until 9:30 the next day. My free time at university was spent thinking "I shouldn't be doing this, I've got a project/revision/etc to do")

Re:People aren't robots

[Chrisq]

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.

I worked with someone like that. If he ever stopped for a chat it would be about the pros and cons of using a linked list or a circular buffer in various circumstances or something like that. I found out later that when he went home he programmed open source projects. He was the ideal programmer, accurate and highly productive. He needed careful management however because he was only a programmer. A manager once asked him to discuss requirements with a user and both came away angry, the programmer because the user "was being ambiguous" and the user because the programmer "wasn't listening".

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

[fabs64]

The solutions to so many design problems pop into my head while I'm walking to get coffee or on my lunchbreak it's not funny.

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

[Antique Geekmeister]

You haven't helped raise children, have you? Oh, dear, if you want to see complex and buggy, try working with a 12 year old who usually lives with their mother.

Re:People aren't robots

[Bacon Bits]

Well, at least you can be a door-to-door window salesman. That's more than most sociology graduates.

Re:People aren't robots

[Octorian]

That reminds me of once when I worked on a day that the rest of the office was completely empty. I don't think I was able to keep myself there past 7 hours total.

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."

I also find the Two-Hour Rule to be an interesting (and probably valid) observation.

Re:People aren't robots

[suso]

At "05:37AM"??

FAIL.

The earth is round and not all people live in the same place on it. As the earth rotates, the sun illuminates a little over half of it and generally people like to work and shop during this time. Society has quite simply divided this time up this into time zones so that 8am for one part of the planet is at a different actual instance as 8am for another part. So while it might be 5:37 where you are, it is working hours for someone else. Next time we meet, we can go over the metric system.

Re:People aren't robots

[Nursie]

LOL @ twice as hard!

No disrespect to our non-western programming chums, I've worked with great programmers of a lot of different nationalities. The thing about outsourcing to the far east and india is that all the good people already left for the western economies where they get paid more.

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

[OakDragon]

And if that doesn't work out, you could try window-to-window door sales.

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.

Oblig XKCD

[El_Muerte_TDS]

http://xkcd.com/303/

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

Re:Oblig XKCD

[Divide By Zero]

Rule 34a: If it exists, there is xkcd of it. Rule 35a: If Rule 34a is proven untrue, Randal is working on one.

Hopefully...

[dsavi]

Hopefully they will see this while browsing /. during work and straighten their ways. I mean, that happens all the time, doesn't it?

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.

 

Hey, is that you Arun?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's you, isn't it. You're the little douche bag who keeps bitching about us taking breaks. We actually have a pool going on how many times you'll say yes to extra hours before you crack. Hey, you got something brown on your nose.

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.

Those mines aren't going to sweep themselves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad you got that degree aren't you?

Stick to your hours! Tell your boss!

[fantomas]

I used to work in an IT research group in a university. All of us were single or in relaxed relationships where the other partner was also a professional, so there was no pressure to keep to 'school run' times, pick up kids, get home for set meal times etc. Which meant we worked erratic and long hours. Some days we'd kick back and mess around, other days we'd work late, weekends etc.

We got a new guy in who laid down the rules politely but firmly with the boss. He said "I've got a 3 year old son and he's the most important thing in my life. I'll come in early, and I'll work hard from 8.30 til 5.00 and if you need me to do more hours I'll even come in earlier. But I leave here at 5.30 to get home for his meal and I don't work weekends because I spend time with my family".

The guy got a lot of respect for his stance, and he was true to his word. He'd come in bang on time, work damn hard, not goof around when we were kicking back, and leave prompt on 5.30. We all knew if we needed his help on a project we couldn't leave it til 5.25, we had to get organised and get our questions to him for lunchtime.

I think you should do the same - tell the boss you'll work the hours and you'll work hard while you're in the office but you have other commitments and you'll not be able to pull all nighters. You'll be respected for it. And if they say that this isn't fair, and you should be prepared to sacrifice your life to the job, you should be looking out for other employment.

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.

Yes

[gmhowell]

Having worked in numerous fields (probably more than the IT workers who have thus far replied) I can say without a doubt that IT consists of the biggest bunch of slackers I've ever in my life seen. I enjoy it quite a bit, but I'm actually getting to a point where I'm starting to feel a little guilty. But only a little.

IT work can be theoretical

[A beautiful mind]

I know, I've been asked if I'm feeling okay by colleagues when seemingly all I did was to stare into the empty space, at the window or someplace else. In reality, I was working more efficiently than most of them, preferring to think about a problem before I try to implement a solution for it. Probably 90% of the work I do is designing a good architecture, making sure it's fast, scalable, robust, flexible and maintainable enough. This requires weighting dozens of different factors and thinking about a lot of "action at a distance" kind of problems.

I love my job. I would do it even if I wouldn't receive financial compensation for it. One drawback is that you can't really work office hours with it, it's hard to switch off iterating a problem in the back of your mind (resulting in several House-esque moments of some totally unrelated thing reminding me to a neat concept that helps me implement an elegant solution).

I guess the point is, different people work differently. Yeah, if someone's browsing for porn or looking at bash.org, they are probably not doing anything useful, but taking a break or if someone looks like he's idling, it's not always the case that they are not doing anything productive.

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.

As a long time freelancer in IT ...

[Aceticon]

... and having worked in at least 12 different companies by now, i can tell you that:

a) It depends on the company - company culture, profit margins and the business the company are in all make for more or less hectic enviroments in the IT areas (and others).
b) It depends on the morale of the employees. Recessions actually mean that there are more unmotivated workers around since many which would otherwise left will stay put until "the storm passes".
c) It the depends on the point of the development cycle you are on. For all you know, a week before you joined people were over-stressed and working long hours to make a release and now they are in the decompression period before a new major project is started.

Also and to put it plainly: as a recent graduate you know nothing working in IT.

Let me break this too you now before you learn it the hard way:

• You'll have to unlearn a lot before you're a proper professional
• Activity is not the same as Productivity. To give you an easy to understand example: if a guy is breaking stone in a quarry with a hammer the whole day without stopping, he still vastly underproduces the guy that does it for 2 hours with a jackhammer and then loafs about the rest of the day. Working smart always beats working hard.
• If you're really good, people will take advantage of your innocence, ignorance and eagerness to overwork you to death. The funny bit is that, because you have no real professional experience (and due to overwork), you will make all the mistakes in the book and somebody (maybe you yourself) will inherit a POS that they will have to fix.

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.

What what what?

[AbRASiON]

You sure you've chosen the right profession? Sounds to me like you want to be in management, you'll fit right in.

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.

Subject

[Legion303]

"I would like to ask Slashdot what methods others have used to deal with office environments such as this."

I usually dump my extra work on the new guy so I have more time to relax and goof off. You should pressure your company to hire someone newer than yourself.

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.

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...

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I knew someone who was working for a big company doing some coding."

"Management at the company was so out of touch (had no clue what folks did in IT at all) that this was possible and this person was NEVER missed while not at work."

If the person was a software engineer, or even a coder, he isn't in "IT". There is a reason why companies have an IT department, and then a completely seperate department called software engineeing. An IT guy needs to be in the building to help employees, repair and replace bad hardware, and do general system maintanence, etc. A software engineer , on the other hand, may well be working on the drive, and while actually hang gliding. This used to piss me off when I worked at a company where the management didn't get this: Just because I'm outside drinking a coffe and smoking a cigarette doesn't mean I'm not working! In fact, just because I'm sleeping, that doesn't mean I'm not working. I have woken many times with the solution to a problem I had been trying to solve for days clear in my mind, that bubbled up from my subconscious while in delta (dream state.)

If you think a true software developer should spend most of his time in front of a computer writing code, then it is you who has no idea what is involved in developing great software.

Take it from an old timer

[Atrox666]

I used to kill myself. Work my ass off. I accepted excuses as to why I couldn't get a raise or a promotion even though I was told I earned one. People I learned were making big bonuses were telling me there was no money for bonuses. Then the excuses started to pile up year after year and I watched other people who worked less and had less responsibility get paid more because they were not IT. I watched it happen to all my co-workers too so I know it wasn't something I was doing. So if I can't get paid more I just give less. I'm naturally a hard worker so I had to train myself but now I'm happy to say I am taking advantage of the fucking parasites who were ever so happy to take advantage of me. It's not a good relationship or the one I would have chosen but at least I'm no longer the bitch. I'd type more but I got in late so it's almost time for my coffee break.

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

[farrellj]

Most managers do not realize that writing code is a *CREATIVE* endeavour...it's not an matter of simply putting parts together like a worker on an assembly line! Some of my best coding was done at 3 am, all the lights out except for my monitor, stereo blasting Ministry's Psalm 69 at just under ear-bleed levels. Most people couldn't code in that environment, in fact, most people would have a hard time even *thinking* in that environment...but for me, it was pure code heaven.

ttyl
          Farrell

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

[Zarf]

"I knew someone who was working for a big company doing some coding."

"Management at the company was so out of touch (had no clue what folks did in IT at all) that this was possible and this person was NEVER missed while not at work."

If the person was a software engineer, or even a coder, he isn't in "IT". There is a reason why companies have an IT department, and then a completely seperate department called software engineeing. An IT guy needs to be in the building to help employees, repair and replace bad hardware, and do general system maintanence, etc. A software engineer , on the other hand, may well be working on the drive, and while actually hang gliding. This used to piss me off when I worked at a company where the management didn't get this: Just because I'm outside drinking a coffe and smoking a cigarette doesn't mean I'm not working! In fact, just because I'm sleeping, that doesn't mean I'm not working. I have woken many times with the solution to a problem I had been trying to solve for days clear in my mind, that bubbled up from my subconscious while in delta (dream state.)

If you think a true software developer should spend most of his time in front of a computer writing code, then it is you who has no idea what is involved in developing great software.

This is honestly why I think being a Software Engineer is more like being a writer than it is anything else. No, being a Software Engineer is NOT being a writer... just they are the most similar in working styles. The writer (as a reporter, researcher, journalist, or just fiction writer) runs off to research things and does stuff that looks a lot like goofing off for weeks at a time to sit down one day an in a flurry produce something the company then takes and sells for millions. Truly new and innovative software requires lots and lots of field work. If that SE was writing software about flying then hang-gliding might be very important research.

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.

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

[MBGMorden]

Your definition of IT and most companies don't seem to jive. What I've seen is that at any company whose business isn't the production of software for others to use, everyone who does "computer stuff" is in IT. In our organization we have "techs", network admins, database admins, programmers, etc, and all of us fall under the umbrella of IT. Hell even our receptionists are in IT even though all they do is answer the phone. It's been the same way at 3 other companies I've worked for. The only exception I've seen is with working with outside vendors, but in that case since they're producing computer software as their business it wouldn't make sense (since in that case almost the whole company would be IT).