The Rise of Performative Work(economist.com)
economist.com
The Rise of Performative Work
https://www.economist.com/business/2022/01/08/the-rise-of-performative-work
162 comments
You win if by win you mean fool everyone to pay you for nothing, if you're someone who gets satisfaction mostly from feeling smarter than others and "winning", that sounds adequate
It's also possible to get satisfaction from delivering a big project, doing something hard with your team and so on though, instead of a purely adversarial attitude.
It's also possible to get satisfaction from delivering a big project, doing something hard with your team and so on though, instead of a purely adversarial attitude.
> You win if by win you mean fool everyone to pay you for nothing, if you're someone who gets satisfaction mostly from feeling smarter than others and "winning", that sounds adequate
There have been many times in my career where I went the extra mile, but didn't communicate it well enough and ended up not getting rewarded for it. I also noticed other people over-communicated what they did, even in cases where I didn't think what they did was really that hard. If they get rewarded for that, is it fair? My opinion today is it doesn't matter. If I want that bonus or that promotion, I'm going to "perform" for my boss to make sure I get my share.
There have been many times in my career where I went the extra mile, but didn't communicate it well enough and ended up not getting rewarded for it. I also noticed other people over-communicated what they did, even in cases where I didn't think what they did was really that hard. If they get rewarded for that, is it fair? My opinion today is it doesn't matter. If I want that bonus or that promotion, I'm going to "perform" for my boss to make sure I get my share.
I hope my surgeon doesn't have your attitude.
You need to both do good work and take responsibility to communicate this to your manager.
If you just do good work, but don't communicate it, your manager might not know and won't reward you properly.
If you don't do good work but only "perform", you lack integrity, you're not developing yourself, you're cheating your customers, and you are a drain on your employer and society.
You need to both do good work and take responsibility to communicate this to your manager.
If you just do good work, but don't communicate it, your manager might not know and won't reward you properly.
If you don't do good work but only "perform", you lack integrity, you're not developing yourself, you're cheating your customers, and you are a drain on your employer and society.
Given enough time. Yes, your surgeon has this attitude. Any system with a grade will be gamified to hit arbitrary targets. Even if those targets do not map back to customer value. Even if the targets are out of their control. Aka red beads.
https://youtu.be/ckBfbvOXDvU
“Tell me how you will measure me, and then I will tell you how I will behave. If you measure me in an illogical way, don’t complain about illogical behavior.” – Eli Goldratt
https://youtu.be/ckBfbvOXDvU
“Tell me how you will measure me, and then I will tell you how I will behave. If you measure me in an illogical way, don’t complain about illogical behavior.” – Eli Goldratt
Unsurprisingly, even in medicine doctors who do better at patient communication get better reviews. And there's an entire industry of alternative medicine which is bad at proving efficacy but good at selling it to the patient ...
I would argue that patient communication is a vital role in healing. Some doctors might get by beeing bad at it, but there should be someone in the system who explains the situation and possible tradeoffs to the patient instead of them. After all, the patient is the single person who is most motivated for healing to succeed. Quite a few doctors never grasp this concept (to be fair, they are similar to many engineers in this), which is a shame.
The placebo effect is so strong that doing nothing convincingly might be all they need.
Oh I don’t disagree with your comment about integrity. I just don’t think good work is enough in the corporate rat race. I know when I’ve done good work and I’m proud of it, and I do my best to put good effort into whatever I do, but I’m not naive enough to think that somehow that’s enough to get rewarded at work. Working for someone else is a combination of doing good work and managing expectations. Sometimes good work isn’t enough, or even needed.
> you are a drain on your employer and society
A drain on the people that are enabling this type of attitude in the first place? I have a hard time understanding your reasoning here.
A drain on the people that are enabling this type of attitude in the first place? I have a hard time understanding your reasoning here.
Presumably medical work is different from this type of office work.
Perhaps most importantly/obviously in ease of measuring effectiveness, patient outcomes have a lot of other factors of course, but it seems like a better metric than 'number of closed tickets' or 'lines of code' or whatever.
My findings exactly, if an impactful project ships in a forest and no manager is around to see it will you get promoted? Not in my experience
>It's also possible to get satisfaction from delivering a big project,
and then getting fired because obviously don't need you anymore!
I have a hard time faulting people for attitudes or behaviors that are adversarial considering that the system seems to be designed to be adversarial, although I must admit I find myself unable to play those games as they seem too tiring than just trying to work hard and deliver and hope that works out.
and then getting fired because obviously don't need you anymore!
I have a hard time faulting people for attitudes or behaviors that are adversarial considering that the system seems to be designed to be adversarial, although I must admit I find myself unable to play those games as they seem too tiring than just trying to work hard and deliver and hope that works out.
on the other hand now I think of some projects I was on that didn't go too well, could it be that the guys who I thought were clueless idiots that were seriously making everything we did take twice as long were actually performing work for more important people than me - the product owner who could never make a decision themselves but had to rope others into it (thus creating a paper trail of work performed) or the technical tester who had been given that job because he was tired of writing excel spreadsheets and needed more challenges and wrote many unreasonable bug reports.
So while I don't fault them (as being immoral or unethical) I sure can be annoyed by them.
So while I don't fault them (as being immoral or unethical) I sure can be annoyed by them.
There are certainly intrinsic motivations as well, but what the company incentivizes is performing, whether or not you achieve anything. You can still achieve something if you wish, but achievement is not a requirement.
In a country with healthcare tied to employment & ever rising cost of the most basic of living, it gets hard to blame people who do whatever they have to do to get by / live
Forget even needs. I don't blame employees for playing the game for whatever reason, as that is the game management has, though its actions/neglect, decided that it wants played.
And this is why financial independence is so sought after by a lot of people - they want to stop playing this game, but without having to make sacrifices to their lifestyle.
Ironically, that financial independence comes about from investing in companies that engage in this game.
You say that healthcare is tied to employment in the US. Obamacare tried to change that but failed.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough. At this point, the military axiom of taking any action at all is better than inaction seems to hold. If you want to change the status quo of American healthcare, Obamacare is better than doing nothing while waiting for healthcare Godot, even if Obamacare is the opposite direction of where you want to go.
I see this a lot in our industry (and other industries) as well. People will endlessly bikeshed for a perfect solution until well past the point that "any action at all" was a better choice than continual bikeshedding. This dynamic is often used by stakeholders with a significant investment in the status quo to politically kill any change while appearing to be onboard with change.
I see this a lot in our industry (and other industries) as well. People will endlessly bikeshed for a perfect solution until well past the point that "any action at all" was a better choice than continual bikeshedding. This dynamic is often used by stakeholders with a significant investment in the status quo to politically kill any change while appearing to be onboard with change.
I thought the point of Obamacare was to separate healthcare from employment, but it turns out it never succeeded in truly accomplishing that.
Managers often take advantage of that attitude and when their employees start to realise that it drives away most of the satisfaction from the work.
It's hard to keep that adversarial attitude at bay when that is the lifeblood of management.
It's hard to keep that adversarial attitude at bay when that is the lifeblood of management.
I think winning here is more money, more interesting projects, bosses treating you better and so on. It is very material.
Satisfaction from good work turns into resentment quickly when you find yourself respected less then peers.
Satisfaction from good work turns into resentment quickly when you find yourself respected less then peers.
Isn't the point that "win" here means "progress in one's career"? I think the comment is pointing out that promotions and salary increases depend on the perceptions of those in a position to grant them. (See also: Goodhart's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law )
I think the point is a little more general than that. You "win" by convincing people to pay you - whether it's for nothing, for regular work, or for superior work, is immaterial.
This isn't a zero-sum game, at the IC level at least. Winning doesn't mean others lose. It just means you get paid. There are many roads to victory, including empty performance.
This isn't a zero-sum game, at the IC level at least. Winning doesn't mean others lose. It just means you get paid. There are many roads to victory, including empty performance.
Thing is, a lot of white collar jobs have always been performative. They just don’t need 6-8 man hours a day. They require very little actual production. It’s collective psychosis.
There is a very good book about this: Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. It started as an essay but the book is even better
I highly recommend reading the book “Sapiens” by Harari. The premise is that society is essentially collective psychosis. To me it’s on upper management to plan accordingly. If we are able ship products in the time allotted, the number of hours per day shouldn’t really matter right? Provided that it’s not burning people out.
[deleted]
Some concrete examples may be warranted.
90% of jobs in the high density business district in the city nearest you.
Unless you count browsing the internet, gossiping about karen in marketting, sitting in meetings that have no relevence to you and checking email as a daily task that requires 6 hours of work; at most there is a half days work done each day.
Unless you count browsing the internet, gossiping about karen in marketting, sitting in meetings that have no relevence to you and checking email as a daily task that requires 6 hours of work; at most there is a half days work done each day.
> 90% of jobs in the high density business district in the city nearest you.
Have you examined the possibility you may be ignorant to what 90% of those jobs entail? Not being able to understand their output and complexity doesn't make them performative.
Have you examined the possibility you may be ignorant to what 90% of those jobs entail? Not being able to understand their output and complexity doesn't make them performative.
> Have you examined the possibility you may be ignorant
I have examined this, and many other subjects, in great detail; it is true.
I have examined this, and many other subjects, in great detail; it is true.
Oh, ok.
Thanks, I'm cured!
Thanks, I'm cured!
Have you considered the possibility that you are ignorant of just how stupid and parasitic this entire system is?
Still waiting on those concrete examples.
The impending global melt down of climate change and bitcoin isn't enough? The fact that our entire government handles a pandemic worse than some 3rd world countries? The fact that our country just let more people die than all of our previous wars combined to support capitalism?
The fact that polluters have been allowed to leave ticking time bombs all around our country without having to pay for the clean up, that we are still mining coal, that our obesity crisis could be solved by walking and taking the bus, but politicians are terrified of letting gasoline rise to its actual price?
I dunno man, you want more?
The fact that polluters have been allowed to leave ticking time bombs all around our country without having to pay for the clean up, that we are still mining coal, that our obesity crisis could be solved by walking and taking the bus, but politicians are terrified of letting gasoline rise to its actual price?
I dunno man, you want more?
Actually producing output is not the only way employees add value, though. The much-derided “water cooler” talk for example can be a way for cross-team pollination and build cohesion across thehahhahaha just kidding!
I have witnessed quite a bit of cross team pollination in my time.
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Yet you fail to provide one concrete example, I also sometimes attend meetings, browse the internet and talk to colleauges, but this in no way makes my job performative.
If you can't provide an example it is fine, I understand, I already think you are wrong about it, and this just confirms it.
If you can't provide an example it is fine, I understand, I already think you are wrong about it, and this just confirms it.
> beyond my boss believing it
Even worse, the boss might not care what is true/false.
The boss might win if she has many reports that seem to be working hard on hard problems, not achieving something measurable.
Even worse, the boss might not care what is true/false.
The boss might win if she has many reports that seem to be working hard on hard problems, not achieving something measurable.
Yep. You might be 5 levels below anyone who has a genuine stake in outcomes.
Those things are not mutually exclusive.
In a non-dysfunctional team, it is much easier to impress peers and managers if you have done useful work than if you haven't. The performative/visibility side has 2 aspects - first it should guide your choice of work towards the stuff that actually matters for people paying you to do work, or the nearest proxy (your manager, skip level, etc.), i.e. it should either map to some higher level objective directly or it should help other people/teams achieve theirs. Second is the cringy part, it does help have to make it visible unless it already is; or make it more visible. Let's say another team shipped some feature, but it was only viable because I've greatly improved the perf of their dependency as part of the project. It's not directly related to their feature, and kind of obscure to almost everyone involved, but I want to make sure I'm mentioned on the org-level ship email ;) Is it performative? Sure. But it's fair and follows useful work.
Bingo. Red beads.
https://youtu.be/ckBfbvOXDvU
https://youtu.be/ckBfbvOXDvU
Off topic but is it petty to pet peeve about the phrase "by extension"? As far as I can tell it's just a better-sounding way to say "so I'm going to assume".
https://archive.is/RJQQX
tl;dr: people are "performing the doing of work" by making sure they look like they're active on slack and paying attention in zoominars. The "theater" of work is a thing that's become celebrated.
My take: I think I've met plenty of people who've pretended to work, especially back when I did some work with government contractors. Even minor requests would take days to weeks to even get a reply. So I don't think this is anything new; we've just adapted to new ways to pretend to work.
But: as someone running a bootstrapped startup, there's more actual "doing" now than there ever was. Gone are the "networking opportunities" where you go out for real meetings. It's all zoominars now, which means there's more time to get stuff done (or more likely, get burnt out, then tricking myself I'm being productive)
tl;dr: people are "performing the doing of work" by making sure they look like they're active on slack and paying attention in zoominars. The "theater" of work is a thing that's become celebrated.
My take: I think I've met plenty of people who've pretended to work, especially back when I did some work with government contractors. Even minor requests would take days to weeks to even get a reply. So I don't think this is anything new; we've just adapted to new ways to pretend to work.
But: as someone running a bootstrapped startup, there's more actual "doing" now than there ever was. Gone are the "networking opportunities" where you go out for real meetings. It's all zoominars now, which means there's more time to get stuff done (or more likely, get burnt out, then tricking myself I'm being productive)
The problem is that salaried work is still coupled with time requirements rather than goal requirements. If you meet your goals early and announce that, you just get more work.
Pretending to work covers the difference between expectations of time worked and expectations of goals met. As long as you meet your goals, I don't think most employers care about the fake work.
Trying to work knowledge employees as if they are on an assembly line clocking in and out won't work and most employers know this. The only improvement to this situation is if employers let you not show up after completing your goals, within some unit of time like a two week sprint.
Pretending to work covers the difference between expectations of time worked and expectations of goals met. As long as you meet your goals, I don't think most employers care about the fake work.
Trying to work knowledge employees as if they are on an assembly line clocking in and out won't work and most employers know this. The only improvement to this situation is if employers let you not show up after completing your goals, within some unit of time like a two week sprint.
> If you meet your goals early and announce that, you just get more work.
Not only that, the larger the company you work for, the more likely the more people will be involved in your project. That leads to all sorts of inefficiencies. If you finish early, you may still need to wait on someone else before your next task. So the work you pick up will often just be busywork anyway, since you can’t do the important work until you’re unblocked.
The incentives for working harder or faster are so decoupled from actual results in a large company (i.e. we shipped something and made X more dollars which means Y more dollars for me) that gaming the system and “performing” is the only real meaning you can derive from your actions.
Not only that, the larger the company you work for, the more likely the more people will be involved in your project. That leads to all sorts of inefficiencies. If you finish early, you may still need to wait on someone else before your next task. So the work you pick up will often just be busywork anyway, since you can’t do the important work until you’re unblocked.
The incentives for working harder or faster are so decoupled from actual results in a large company (i.e. we shipped something and made X more dollars which means Y more dollars for me) that gaming the system and “performing” is the only real meaning you can derive from your actions.
> Not only that, the larger the company you work for, the more likely the more people will be involved in your project.
I was very unprepared for this when I worked for my first large company. The first three months of a project was figuring out who was who, the politics and making connections.
I was very unprepared for this when I worked for my first large company. The first three months of a project was figuring out who was who, the politics and making connections.
In my experience, it seems like people do whatever they want. Block off an afternoon for appointments, to drive their kids somewhere, or just “heads-down” time where they’re not responding to chat. As long as people have some kind of work to show each performance cycle, and they don’t disappear for extended periods without warning, nobody seems to mind.
A 4-day work week would formalize this and reduce the stress, though. Some companies allow it: for example, I know google engineers who work 80% time (with a corresponding pay cut). 80% of Google pay is still plenty for most people.
A 4-day work week would formalize this and reduce the stress, though. Some companies allow it: for example, I know google engineers who work 80% time (with a corresponding pay cut). 80% of Google pay is still plenty for most people.
Reminds me of the book No Rules Rules and Hastings unorthodox view on busy work. Hastings rejects a managers proposal for a promotion because an employee "works really hard". Hastings then clarifies that it's about impact, customer value, not busy work and how much of it you did.
I’ve been shipping software, my entire adult life (over 30 years).
Kind of hard to fake.
That’s one reason that I was so blindsided by what I encountered, when I was looking for work, a few years ago.
I had an enormous library of finished, high-quality, polished, complete work, already in the public venue; but people were only interested in small, impractical, competitive exercises.
It didn’t take me long to realize that it was more important to consider people who “played the game,” than it was, those that could provably deliver product.
So I stopped looking, and went to work with some folks that couldn’t afford to pay me, but were interested in actually delivering software.
Kind of hard to fake.
That’s one reason that I was so blindsided by what I encountered, when I was looking for work, a few years ago.
I had an enormous library of finished, high-quality, polished, complete work, already in the public venue; but people were only interested in small, impractical, competitive exercises.
It didn’t take me long to realize that it was more important to consider people who “played the game,” than it was, those that could provably deliver product.
So I stopped looking, and went to work with some folks that couldn’t afford to pay me, but were interested in actually delivering software.
This really hits home.
I work at a recently IPO'ed unicorn that is doing extremely well and can confirm that in the early days (sub 100 employees when I started) we were more concerned with people who could ship software/solve real problems and had data/experience to confirm this. Now that we are public and growing, it's all leet code style questions to get hired, and I can say first hand that the velocity of development, as well as innovation has dropped off a cliff.
It's to the point that I've stated to leadership that I would fail the interview for the job I've been a top performer in for the past 5 years as the interview format doesn't actually focus on real world skills, but memorising algos.
We've essentially imported this culture into what was once, one of the most dynamic companies I had ever seen. It's awful and I can't wait to leave. Most of the older timers are already going for similar reasons.
More of a rant then a comment I guess, but I just really related to your experience.
I work at a recently IPO'ed unicorn that is doing extremely well and can confirm that in the early days (sub 100 employees when I started) we were more concerned with people who could ship software/solve real problems and had data/experience to confirm this. Now that we are public and growing, it's all leet code style questions to get hired, and I can say first hand that the velocity of development, as well as innovation has dropped off a cliff.
It's to the point that I've stated to leadership that I would fail the interview for the job I've been a top performer in for the past 5 years as the interview format doesn't actually focus on real world skills, but memorising algos.
We've essentially imported this culture into what was once, one of the most dynamic companies I had ever seen. It's awful and I can't wait to leave. Most of the older timers are already going for similar reasons.
More of a rant then a comment I guess, but I just really related to your experience.
I am sorry about that. I hope that you were able to develop a reasonably lucrative early stake in the company.
In my case, it has never been about the money. It has always been about the joy of development, and, in some cases, a desire to be a part of an elite team.
When I started looking, I would have been absolutely ideal for early-stage startups. I was willing to work for a ludicrously low wage and take risks (I had my retirement set, so I just needed to keep the lights on, and medical insurance), had (still have) an enormous breadth of experience, along with some really lucrative specialized skills. I had years of experience, selling complex projects to very skeptical managers (Japanese, so a tough room. Make American VCs look like friendly puppies). I have actually shipped completed, supported software, since my very first project (I can prove it, I still have the manual[0]). I had a lot of extra time on my hands, was willing to put in long hours, and I also had this massive portfolio[1] of finished work, writings, code, and years of commit history, for anyone that wanted to see. It was plainly obvious what I had to bring to the table; good and bad. I am an open book. Really easy to find out, if you know how to click a mouse button.
Even early-stage startups were obsessed with "cultural fit" (which I didn't have), and don't get me started on the recruiters. They were the worst. The insults and power games were ridiculous (and highly unprofessional). I realized that, even if I got hired, they would treat me very badly.
This tech industry has changed a lot. I had been at my previous gig for 27 years straight. It was one of the biggest brands in the world, synonymous with Quality, and I was on a peer basis with some of the finest engineers and scientists in the world. I was often the dumbest person in the room, and I'm smarter than the average bear. In fact, that was a big reason for my staying so long. I think that it is important to be in an environment where I'm challenged (one of the reasons I hang out here).
Didn't mean a thing. In fact, it seemed to be something that actually elicited scorn.
[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/TF30194/TF30194-Manual-1987.pdf
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall
In my case, it has never been about the money. It has always been about the joy of development, and, in some cases, a desire to be a part of an elite team.
When I started looking, I would have been absolutely ideal for early-stage startups. I was willing to work for a ludicrously low wage and take risks (I had my retirement set, so I just needed to keep the lights on, and medical insurance), had (still have) an enormous breadth of experience, along with some really lucrative specialized skills. I had years of experience, selling complex projects to very skeptical managers (Japanese, so a tough room. Make American VCs look like friendly puppies). I have actually shipped completed, supported software, since my very first project (I can prove it, I still have the manual[0]). I had a lot of extra time on my hands, was willing to put in long hours, and I also had this massive portfolio[1] of finished work, writings, code, and years of commit history, for anyone that wanted to see. It was plainly obvious what I had to bring to the table; good and bad. I am an open book. Really easy to find out, if you know how to click a mouse button.
Even early-stage startups were obsessed with "cultural fit" (which I didn't have), and don't get me started on the recruiters. They were the worst. The insults and power games were ridiculous (and highly unprofessional). I realized that, even if I got hired, they would treat me very badly.
This tech industry has changed a lot. I had been at my previous gig for 27 years straight. It was one of the biggest brands in the world, synonymous with Quality, and I was on a peer basis with some of the finest engineers and scientists in the world. I was often the dumbest person in the room, and I'm smarter than the average bear. In fact, that was a big reason for my staying so long. I think that it is important to be in an environment where I'm challenged (one of the reasons I hang out here).
Didn't mean a thing. In fact, it seemed to be something that actually elicited scorn.
[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/TF30194/TF30194-Manual-1987.pdf
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall
Im curious: leadership apparently ignored your comment? Or what did they say?
I posted this a while back and it echoed a lot of the same sentiments of your comment. Wondered whether it was just a relative junior complaining, but evidently not.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/pzofk7/t...
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/pzofk7/t...
The job of HR is to hire people. So HR absolutely loves job hoppers, even depends on them. Given this system, this reddit story is the logical conclusion.
I’ve always wondered why I didn’t see people at my employer doing this “change jobs every year for huge gains” thing, but if the huge gains are $180k TC I guess that’s why. FB probably pays the interns more than that.
Yeah a lot of the jumping is that junior at a no name company isn’t anything at FAANG, but senior at a no name can be intermediate/junior at FAANG.
Also, many companies on the lower end don’t provide equity, so you are essentially just rented on a two week basis.
Also, many companies on the lower end don’t provide equity, so you are essentially just rented on a two week basis.
I genuinely love the rise of performative work culture.
I am someone who spent years frustrated by the performative BS at my workplaces. Actually being proactive was not as important as achieving some superficial engineering task that didn't actually solve anything.
So, I flipped the script and leveraged this silliness into a 7 figure salary by working multiple remote jobs. I work 4 SWE jobs, spend about 10-15 hours per week per job, act like I'm "working" for the rest of that time, get paid. Works for me, works for them!
I am someone who spent years frustrated by the performative BS at my workplaces. Actually being proactive was not as important as achieving some superficial engineering task that didn't actually solve anything.
So, I flipped the script and leveraged this silliness into a 7 figure salary by working multiple remote jobs. I work 4 SWE jobs, spend about 10-15 hours per week per job, act like I'm "working" for the rest of that time, get paid. Works for me, works for them!
Sounds like you can scale that by having multiple employees helping you pretend to work. You can call it 'a consultancy'.
Genius! Except that level of pretending to work is almost too much work.
I have a question for you!
How do you secure additional SWE jobs? Are they FTE roles? How's the recruitment process work?
For example, you may be asked "So froaway, why are you leaving company X?" During an interview or such.
Likewise, how do you promote yourself? Surely you can't have all four roles on your CV given the overlap? So do you choose the most relevant for the upcoming new job?
How do you secure additional SWE jobs? Are they FTE roles? How's the recruitment process work?
For example, you may be asked "So froaway, why are you leaving company X?" During an interview or such.
Likewise, how do you promote yourself? Surely you can't have all four roles on your CV given the overlap? So do you choose the most relevant for the upcoming new job?
How close have you come to screwing up and mistakenly spilling the beans? I would never keep my stand ups straight.
Never come close at all. Been doing the multiple full time job thing for several years. As long as you're getting work done and communicating fairly well people don't seem to question things.
Getting the right meeting cadence down is the toughest part. I make sure to understand the company's meeting culture well before taking any offer. If the meeting schedule doesn't work I leave, it's the biggest factor in any job for me.
Getting the right meeting cadence down is the toughest part. I make sure to understand the company's meeting culture well before taking any offer. If the meeting schedule doesn't work I leave, it's the biggest factor in any job for me.
Do you have specific questions you ask during the interview process in order to understand the meeting culture?
Impressive. I suppose you don't have a linked in profile?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nice-try
In all seriousness, I create a new profile whenever I get a new job and would not be sharing any details here.
In all seriousness, I create a new profile whenever I get a new job and would not be sharing any details here.
Understandable! I was just curious how you'd handle your manager(s) trying to connect with you. Would make sense to just say your fundamentally against such things. Be Ron Swanson.
So, fraud then?
Employer hires one person to do the jobs of four people - smart business sense
Employee is one person doing the jobs of four people - fraud??
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We need to stop praising businesses/execs who work the system while condemning people who do it. Uncaring, amoral corporate culture sees people as mere resources, to be mined for value until they're depleted.
If this is fraud, then expecting somebody to do the workload of multiple people while only receiving one person's salary is also fraud, and that's a conversation I'd be very willing to have.
Employee is one person doing the jobs of four people - fraud??
---
We need to stop praising businesses/execs who work the system while condemning people who do it. Uncaring, amoral corporate culture sees people as mere resources, to be mined for value until they're depleted.
If this is fraud, then expecting somebody to do the workload of multiple people while only receiving one person's salary is also fraud, and that's a conversation I'd be very willing to have.
I have been arguing with people on Blind about this. Not actually fraud!
However, you are likely in violation of employment contract. Where I currently work, and my previous job, you could actually find a way through the official channels by just not being totally accurate about the other job(s).
If challenged it comes down to the details. Moonlighting is a perfectly normal activity for driven people (I did tech blogging for a previous employer once while employed by someone else, so I have navigated this system at one company), and by structuring your disclosures very strategically you could likely avoid any legal impacts.
All that said, working multiple jobs like that will definitely get you fired if you are found out. Even in a state with strong worker protections.
And again, all that said: Don't do this.
However, you are likely in violation of employment contract. Where I currently work, and my previous job, you could actually find a way through the official channels by just not being totally accurate about the other job(s).
If challenged it comes down to the details. Moonlighting is a perfectly normal activity for driven people (I did tech blogging for a previous employer once while employed by someone else, so I have navigated this system at one company), and by structuring your disclosures very strategically you could likely avoid any legal impacts.
All that said, working multiple jobs like that will definitely get you fired if you are found out. Even in a state with strong worker protections.
And again, all that said: Don't do this.
Yep, I've asked before and consulted a few lawyers. Not actually fraud. Kind of a grey area unless I'm explicitly stealing trade secrets or IP.
As for getting fired, I've never been fired but I've also never been caught. Getting kind of good at it, doing this for the past 5+ years. I would assume the nice thing about getting fired in this situation is having multiple incomes to fall back on. I've never had trouble finding new jobs.
As for getting fired, I've never been fired but I've also never been caught. Getting kind of good at it, doing this for the past 5+ years. I would assume the nice thing about getting fired in this situation is having multiple incomes to fall back on. I've never had trouble finding new jobs.
Then once you've finished juggling 4 jobs you have lucrative guru royalties for years if you write a book about it...
Maybe call it the "144 Hour Work-week"
Maybe call it the "144 Hour Work-week"
https://theworknumber.com/ would be an easy way to find an employee who is making a second full-time salary.
None of my employers have sold my info like that... yet. Also, it's not illegal to have another form of income, even a W2 income.
True it may not be a crime, but every company I've worked for (mostly "big tech") has a clause in my contract saying that I can't work another full-time job. If I were, and they found out, I'd probably get fired.
> True it may not be a crime, but every company I've worked for (mostly "big tech") has a clause in my contract saying that I can't work another full-time job. If I were, and they found out, I'd probably get fired.
I don't doubt that some contracts state you can't work another job, but I would consider rereading some of your contracts. Especially in work friendly states, it's hard to enforce those types of clauses and companies are really good at wording things like it's a restriction when it's really a legal suggestion.
> and they found out
How exactly would an employer easily find out? I also worked multiple jobs at FAANG level big tech, you would have to explicitly say something to get found out. In fact, the big tech jobs I've had were genuinely the most administratively bloated and least likely to find out.
I don't doubt that some contracts state you can't work another job, but I would consider rereading some of your contracts. Especially in work friendly states, it's hard to enforce those types of clauses and companies are really good at wording things like it's a restriction when it's really a legal suggestion.
> and they found out
How exactly would an employer easily find out? I also worked multiple jobs at FAANG level big tech, you would have to explicitly say something to get found out. In fact, the big tech jobs I've had were genuinely the most administratively bloated and least likely to find out.
“Fire me. I have 3 other jobs.”
Bingo. I think people have a hard time understanding this. I always get asked, "What happens if you get fired?", I have 4 jobs... I certainly don't want to lose a job, but it's not a big deal to me.
Also, finding a new job has never been that difficult, especially in this market.
Also, finding a new job has never been that difficult, especially in this market.
I don't know, "act like I'm "working" for the rest of that time" sure sounds like there's intentional deception for financial gain.
That's literally what the article is describing, and most people wouldn't consider that fraud, merely incompetence or poor corporate incentives. I'm just leaning into the expectations and ironically doing it better?
Contrast this with most of us guilty of slacking off most every week...
How did you achieve that? How do you allocate your hours?
I have to work at places that have staggered standups and meetings. 7am standup here, 10 am standup there. That kind of thing. I miss the occasional random meeting but I let people know.
I also underachieve in terms of moving up the corporate ladder. I've been asked to move into management for more money, and I always reject those types of promotions since it usually means more unavoidable meetings. Also, I don't bother working on difficult projects, I choose to work in roles where I have clear expertise and can complete work in 2-4 times the expected timeline.
I also underachieve in terms of moving up the corporate ladder. I've been asked to move into management for more money, and I always reject those types of promotions since it usually means more unavoidable meetings. Also, I don't bother working on difficult projects, I choose to work in roles where I have clear expertise and can complete work in 2-4 times the expected timeline.
Flipping that script is bad ass! Sounds like stuff for a separate post.
Or a sitcom.
Performative work is just another term for one of the main topics exposed in the book "Bullshit jobs" by David Graeber. I finished the book last month and it was a very compelling read. It tries to explain the psychology behind trying to understand why almost everyone knows that it is unrealistic to expect employees to be productive and hardworking for 8 or more hours a day, but at the same time nobody is ending our current corporate wage slavery system, in which actually being there is more important that actually doing a meaningful job!
I think the two key texts here are Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs and Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism, specifically his riff on “market Stalinism”:
> The idealized market was supposed to deliver ‘friction free’ exchanges, in which the desires of consumers would be met directly, without the need for intervention or mediation by regulatory agencies. Yet the drive to assess the performance of workers and to measure forms of labor which, by their nature, are resistant to quantification, has inevitably required additional layers of management and bureaucracy. What we have is not a direct comparison of workers’ performance or output, but a comparison between the audited representation of that performance and output. Inevitably, a short-circuiting occurs, and work becomes geared towards the generation and massaging of representations rather than to the official goals of the work itself. Indeed, an anthropological study of local government in Britain argues that ‘More effort goes into ensuring that a local authority’s services are represented correctly than goes into actually improving those services’. This reversal of priorities is one of the hallmarks of a system which can be characterized without hyperbole as ‘market Stalinism’. What late capitalism repeats from Stalinism is just this valuing of symbols of achievement over actual achievement.
> The idealized market was supposed to deliver ‘friction free’ exchanges, in which the desires of consumers would be met directly, without the need for intervention or mediation by regulatory agencies. Yet the drive to assess the performance of workers and to measure forms of labor which, by their nature, are resistant to quantification, has inevitably required additional layers of management and bureaucracy. What we have is not a direct comparison of workers’ performance or output, but a comparison between the audited representation of that performance and output. Inevitably, a short-circuiting occurs, and work becomes geared towards the generation and massaging of representations rather than to the official goals of the work itself. Indeed, an anthropological study of local government in Britain argues that ‘More effort goes into ensuring that a local authority’s services are represented correctly than goes into actually improving those services’. This reversal of priorities is one of the hallmarks of a system which can be characterized without hyperbole as ‘market Stalinism’. What late capitalism repeats from Stalinism is just this valuing of symbols of achievement over actual achievement.
the worst part is, there's no way around it. if you're trying to motivate any individual or group whose desires are not fully coherent, no matter what your intentions and ideology are, any effort to incentivize and document performance approaches Borges. by transitive property the incentive is to create appeasing documentation. the strain of the actual loses out to the efficiency of the plausible.
this is, i think in part, why there is a modern desire towards "local" products and personalities in media, and full diy cottagecore fantasies. it is the only way to at least convince yourself that you could confirm authenticity, even if that is a delusion, because anything else is obviously superhuman in scale. at least you can assign responsibility to a face at a farmers' market, even if they're no less hired than the person minding self-checkout at the grocery. at least a parasocial relationship with a social media personality feels realer and more responsible than traditional mass media, even if they're delivering the same talking points.
the winner of this paradox will be either an anarchist culture relentlessly dismantling everything and enjoying the unknowable, or a vertically integrated police consciousness that simply is/does everything and doesn't need to convince/believe anyone else.
this is, i think in part, why there is a modern desire towards "local" products and personalities in media, and full diy cottagecore fantasies. it is the only way to at least convince yourself that you could confirm authenticity, even if that is a delusion, because anything else is obviously superhuman in scale. at least you can assign responsibility to a face at a farmers' market, even if they're no less hired than the person minding self-checkout at the grocery. at least a parasocial relationship with a social media personality feels realer and more responsible than traditional mass media, even if they're delivering the same talking points.
the winner of this paradox will be either an anarchist culture relentlessly dismantling everything and enjoying the unknowable, or a vertically integrated police consciousness that simply is/does everything and doesn't need to convince/believe anyone else.
"anarchist culture relentlessly dismantling everything and enjoying the unknowable"
A guy by the name of Max Stirner clearly articulated what this new culture would be and would look like. It's too bad that's he's been sort of side-lined by history...
A guy by the name of Max Stirner clearly articulated what this new culture would be and would look like. It's too bad that's he's been sort of side-lined by history...
Any good summaries of his speculated culture?
I found your comment hard to follow, but I think I got the general idea. I’m not sure I buy the last extreme disjunction you’re making though. Surely we can have some middle ground between anarchic individualism and a totalitarian thought-police. All long-term societies of the past and probably of the future are examples. The extreme societies historically implode or revert back to moderate patterns that compromise between diktat and individual speech, usually sometime after the death of the god-leader (Mao, Stalin, Hitler, etc.)
I like your theory about local goods/thought products.
I like your theory about local goods/thought products.
i'm definitely speculating. middle ground is just boring.
if your benchmark is long-term societies, anarchic cultures are it, and anything else including our modern state is an outlying extreme. but here we are.
technology provided the possibility of control, and by current trend, advancing it seems to make some of those possibilities more thorough and more resilient. but moving past the dialogue of incentive and metric by integrating all experience would be a different thing altogether. it's more of a singularity fantasy than anything a human could possibly worry about.
if your benchmark is long-term societies, anarchic cultures are it, and anything else including our modern state is an outlying extreme. but here we are.
technology provided the possibility of control, and by current trend, advancing it seems to make some of those possibilities more thorough and more resilient. but moving past the dialogue of incentive and metric by integrating all experience would be a different thing altogether. it's more of a singularity fantasy than anything a human could possibly worry about.
I don’t see it the same way.
Indian society - not the country because that’s a new creation - has been around for a few thousand years. It hasn’t devolved into anarchy, neither is it totalitarian in the way you are using the word.
They (well, “we” since I’m Indian) figured out that imposing self-censoring through the caste system would lead to social stability. People were born into a certain way of life and they’d die inside it.
From within the straitjacket of caste came inventions like 0, astronomical analyses, religions, Kama sutra, literature, languages, and engineering achievements.
I don’t glorify caste. It’s wrong.
But, a society between the two extremes you posited exists today and it exists because caste based social engineering worked.
Indian society - not the country because that’s a new creation - has been around for a few thousand years. It hasn’t devolved into anarchy, neither is it totalitarian in the way you are using the word.
They (well, “we” since I’m Indian) figured out that imposing self-censoring through the caste system would lead to social stability. People were born into a certain way of life and they’d die inside it.
From within the straitjacket of caste came inventions like 0, astronomical analyses, religions, Kama sutra, literature, languages, and engineering achievements.
I don’t glorify caste. It’s wrong.
But, a society between the two extremes you posited exists today and it exists because caste based social engineering worked.
This sounds like the justification for the society featured in Huxley's Brave New World. It may not totalitarian by the dictionary definition, but it's definitely authoritarian.
Then the definition of both totalitarian and authoritarian needs to be expanded and made inclusive. There’s no central figure/politburo telling a believer in caste that they have to believe in it for the greater good. It’s Vaclav Havel’s description of communism - everyone’s playing along with the caste charade because their neighbor’s are.
It has suffused society to the extent that Indian Muslims will sometimes complain that a Muslim tanner (considered low caste because they work with carcasses) wanted to marry into an upper caste Muslim family. Islam rejects caste per se so this caste based thinking is endemic to Indian society, not religion.
Edit - I am not justifying caste. I’m just pointing out that the previous commenters above me were needlessly limiting the types of societies to anarchy and totalitarian. They should include fatalist societies too.
It has suffused society to the extent that Indian Muslims will sometimes complain that a Muslim tanner (considered low caste because they work with carcasses) wanted to marry into an upper caste Muslim family. Islam rejects caste per se so this caste based thinking is endemic to Indian society, not religion.
Edit - I am not justifying caste. I’m just pointing out that the previous commenters above me were needlessly limiting the types of societies to anarchy and totalitarian. They should include fatalist societies too.
i would consider a caste system, and the social engineering necessary to create and maintain it, to be control technology.
it's possible the only reason we aren't at an "extreme" now because we're still tipping between steady states. there was no structured society for, effectively, forever. pretty stable, long enough that it is hard to consider the current world a normal situation.
we've had a few thousand years of confusing buildup, as we maybe transition to a total structure, lasting who knows how long, but i can't see something like that being short-lived.
yes the society between extremes exists and we're in it. but none of this around me looks stable or capable of withstanding what the future holds. and the longer-lived examples, though impressive on an individual timescale, are still a sudden late flash in the deep and mostly unknown timeline of all human history.
it's possible the only reason we aren't at an "extreme" now because we're still tipping between steady states. there was no structured society for, effectively, forever. pretty stable, long enough that it is hard to consider the current world a normal situation.
we've had a few thousand years of confusing buildup, as we maybe transition to a total structure, lasting who knows how long, but i can't see something like that being short-lived.
yes the society between extremes exists and we're in it. but none of this around me looks stable or capable of withstanding what the future holds. and the longer-lived examples, though impressive on an individual timescale, are still a sudden late flash in the deep and mostly unknown timeline of all human history.
"Market Stalinism" is a great phrase. I've been referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement whenever I see excessive metric-driven workplaces.
> nobody is ending our current corporate wage slavery system, in which actually being there is more important that actually doing a meaningful job!
Good corporate management is constantly fighting it: Downsizing, firing all people in bullshit jobs. "We release you to seek new opportunities!". Using only the bottom line as a measure of success is another one. No indirect performance measures.
David Graeber was a polemical writer, he never offered viewpoints that steered readers off from narrative he had in his mind. For example, the idea that bullshit jobs are something that can be removed by more ruthless and goal oriented management.
Good corporate management is constantly fighting it: Downsizing, firing all people in bullshit jobs. "We release you to seek new opportunities!". Using only the bottom line as a measure of success is another one. No indirect performance measures.
David Graeber was a polemical writer, he never offered viewpoints that steered readers off from narrative he had in his mind. For example, the idea that bullshit jobs are something that can be removed by more ruthless and goal oriented management.
Y.T.’s mom pulls up the new memo, checks the time, and starts reading it. The estimated reading time is 15.62 minutes. Later, when Marietta does her end-of-day statistical roundup, sitting in her private office at 9:00 P.M., she will see the name of each employee and next to it, the amount of time spent reading this memo, and her reaction, based on the time spent, will go something like this:
Less than 10 mm. Time for an employee conference and possible attitude counseling.
10-14 min. Keep an eye on this employee; may be developing slipshod attitude.
14-15.61 mm. Employee is an efficient worker, may sometimes miss important details.
Exactly 15.62 mm. Smartass. Needs attitude counseling.
15.63-16 mm. Asswipe. Not to be trusted.
16-18 mm. Employee is a methodical worker, may sometimes get hung up on minor details.
More than 18 mm. Check the security videotape, see just what this employee was up to (e.g., possible unauthorized restroom break).
- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Less than 10 mm. Time for an employee conference and possible attitude counseling.
10-14 min. Keep an eye on this employee; may be developing slipshod attitude.
14-15.61 mm. Employee is an efficient worker, may sometimes miss important details.
Exactly 15.62 mm. Smartass. Needs attitude counseling.
15.63-16 mm. Asswipe. Not to be trusted.
16-18 mm. Employee is a methodical worker, may sometimes get hung up on minor details.
More than 18 mm. Check the security videotape, see just what this employee was up to (e.g., possible unauthorized restroom break).
- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
The real solution here is for the writer of the memo must write tests to determine that the correct facts were digested by the reader. Monitor the time to read memo, and then have a test to ensure the memo was understood by the reader.
Genius
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As a non american in tech, Ive found this scarily accurate
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ45ZpI...
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ45ZpI...
where does this come from?
This is entirely upside down.
In the meaty past, humans gathered in offices in close proximity and tried to appear busy during "core office hours," which were often more than 40 a week. Many people wrote about how most of that time could not be spent doing valuable work, but everyone kept the act up.
Now, in the days of plague and distance, we don't need to fake all of that and can focus on accomplishing valuable things.
The problem is that many managers grew into their positions playing the politics of meat space. They "provided value" by being very visible to people. They are having a hard time now that we're all starting to question their previous value.
This entire piece is garbage.
In the meaty past, humans gathered in offices in close proximity and tried to appear busy during "core office hours," which were often more than 40 a week. Many people wrote about how most of that time could not be spent doing valuable work, but everyone kept the act up.
Now, in the days of plague and distance, we don't need to fake all of that and can focus on accomplishing valuable things.
The problem is that many managers grew into their positions playing the politics of meat space. They "provided value" by being very visible to people. They are having a hard time now that we're all starting to question their previous value.
This entire piece is garbage.
> we're all starting to question their previous value.
And that is when management put the zoom wine and cheese evening into your calendar for 19:00 on a thursday evening.
And that is when management put the zoom wine and cheese evening into your calendar for 19:00 on a thursday evening.
Was catching up with a friend who hast some IT work in a trading company.
He says their computers will be locked down after a period of inactivity. And their work is measured by how active they are.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mouse+jiggler&crid=I2FW85QSN9CW&s...
So there are these devices on Amazon that move the mouse for you so the inactivity algorithm breaks and you're always online and active!
As a very hard working person I sometimes feel like an idiot.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mouse+jiggler&crid=I2FW85QSN9CW&s...
So there are these devices on Amazon that move the mouse for you so the inactivity algorithm breaks and you're always online and active!
As a very hard working person I sometimes feel like an idiot.
Slacking off doesn’t really make you happy, it kind of just saps your energy. In my experience as a reforming slacker.
Having (untreated) ADHD and spending 8 hours in an office is quite literally torture.
Even being able to only spend 2 hours max on actual work I was still seen as one of the more productive people in the company, ironically. But those 6 hours of either doing nothing or trying really hard to force your attention to come together are the actual work.
I'm very happy with remote work. I can actually find things to do in between that would definitely not be considered working that lets me spend more time being productive overall.
Even being able to only spend 2 hours max on actual work I was still seen as one of the more productive people in the company, ironically. But those 6 hours of either doing nothing or trying really hard to force your attention to come together are the actual work.
I'm very happy with remote work. I can actually find things to do in between that would definitely not be considered working that lets me spend more time being productive overall.
There's a difference between slacking off and being forced to always be "productive"
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I feel the Economist is very behind the times on this and is actually one of the key magazines read by empty suits, who have been at the forefront of 'office theatrics' (as the print edition of this article was titled), for decades.
Internet connectivity has undoubtedly added a valuable dressing up box of tools for this type of person/cliques but the fundamentals have been taught by HBS's various publications for decades also IMO
Internet connectivity has undoubtedly added a valuable dressing up box of tools for this type of person/cliques but the fundamentals have been taught by HBS's various publications for decades also IMO
Disagree with everyone here. I actually love the Economist. It is short bite sized articles that gives you a good overview of what's going on in the world. I admire how they correct themselves, how picky they are about British English and generally have broad scope of a particular topic, presenting multiple sides. Consistent styling and plots, excellent typography to top it off. There is nothing like that out there. Similarly, people of HN love the New Yorker and I find it unbereable. I like my news like a datasheet. Short, concise and to the point; not a long winded vocabular pornography.
This and most other mags sometimes present good starting points to do further reading, but someone who only reads magazines and thinks they even got the gist of some topic doesn’t know what they don’t know. Which is dangerous.
> I feel the Economist is very behind the times on this and is actually one of the key magazines read by empty suits, who have been at the forefront of 'office theatrics' (a the print edition of this article was titled), for decades.
It absolutely is... when I was in the Navy, a hotshot Academy grad got command of our unit and we ended up volunteering for every goddamned mission that Bravo Oscar needed done. It was fucking miserable. I saw him reading The Economist, Foreign Policy, and Financial Times every chance he got.
It absolutely is... when I was in the Navy, a hotshot Academy grad got command of our unit and we ended up volunteering for every goddamned mission that Bravo Oscar needed done. It was fucking miserable. I saw him reading The Economist, Foreign Policy, and Financial Times every chance he got.
Bravo Oscar?
Bravo Oscar was the call sign given to the commander of Collation forces in the Middle East when I was over there.
Presumably Barack Obama
> I feel the Economist is very behind the times on this and is actually one of the key magazines read by empty suits,
Absolutely. With their views on bullshit jobs (no such thing as per them), remote work they are very much a establishment sockpuppet. If their coverage of things which I know a bit first hand is so shallow/wrong, I wonder if even stories on international affairs are any solid at all.
Absolutely. With their views on bullshit jobs (no such thing as per them), remote work they are very much a establishment sockpuppet. If their coverage of things which I know a bit first hand is so shallow/wrong, I wonder if even stories on international affairs are any solid at all.
The Economist used to be pretty solid IMO until about 12 years ago, about the same time the Harvard Business Review started to morph into a business version of Oprah! magazine.
These days The E, HBR, MIT Review etc are mostly like last century women's magazines, complete with agony aunts and advice. The Economist's geopolitical stance seems to be closely aligned with the WEF along with the FT ( slogan 'A new world is possible. Let's not go back to what wasn't working anyway').
End of an era for these legacy media companies...
These days The E, HBR, MIT Review etc are mostly like last century women's magazines, complete with agony aunts and advice. The Economist's geopolitical stance seems to be closely aligned with the WEF along with the FT ( slogan 'A new world is possible. Let's not go back to what wasn't working anyway').
End of an era for these legacy media companies...
What do you recommend instead?
I tend to rely on online recommendations of specific articles- including the Economist - and try to read as many views as possible. I feel for now the era of legacy media 'packaged' information and views that newspapers, magazines and TV became is over, and that mastheads have lost a huge amount of their prestige. (Joe Rogan's Neilsen ratings versus cable is pretty astonishing for example).
Having said that I get up in the morning and look at the FT, WSJ & Zerohedge in that order and then typically read all sorts of things online throughout the day, often based on recommendations (thanks HN!) Twitter etc. My mother worked for the UK conservative party before I was born and taught me as a youth to read the Daily Telegraph 'so I would know what the buggers are thinking'. This rather cynical view is how I tend to consume most establishment products...
Regarding the Economist I used to like their 'Schumpeter' free market ethos which they seem to have lost recently
Having said that I get up in the morning and look at the FT, WSJ & Zerohedge in that order and then typically read all sorts of things online throughout the day, often based on recommendations (thanks HN!) Twitter etc. My mother worked for the UK conservative party before I was born and taught me as a youth to read the Daily Telegraph 'so I would know what the buggers are thinking'. This rather cynical view is how I tend to consume most establishment products...
Regarding the Economist I used to like their 'Schumpeter' free market ethos which they seem to have lost recently
I used to subscribe it. Ended up cancelling a couple of years ago because even though it does give some coverage on what's going in the world, most of the articles aren't anywhere as deep as I'd like them to be. There are also lots of very shallow, write and forget type of articles. I'm having more luck with the Financial Times but they too gone off the rails a bit.
The author states as much:
> Theatre has always been an important part of the workplace.
They're expounding that it's gotten worse during the pandemic, which I think most of us would agree with.
> Theatre has always been an important part of the workplace.
They're expounding that it's gotten worse during the pandemic, which I think most of us would agree with.
I find it horrendous, it reminds me of Readers Digest, summarizing local stories from around the world into blancmange prose for people who aspire to global leadership.
Performative work reflects the reality that the output of most office jobs just doesn't matter that much.
Jobs like trash collector, produce harvester, chicken plant worker, and snowplow driver actually matter and as we've seen during the pandemic when they aren't done it causes real problems.
Office work is just something to keep people occupied in our economy because it's anathema to recognize that we can produce more than enough necessities to keep everyone comfortable without most people working more than a few hours a week.
Jobs like trash collector, produce harvester, chicken plant worker, and snowplow driver actually matter and as we've seen during the pandemic when they aren't done it causes real problems.
Office work is just something to keep people occupied in our economy because it's anathema to recognize that we can produce more than enough necessities to keep everyone comfortable without most people working more than a few hours a week.
> Performative work reflects the reality that the output of most office jobs just doesn't matter that much.
I disagree. Performative work reflects the reality that most office jobs have concrete results that are hard to measure individually, separated in time and/or space from the work, and highly dependent on other office work that shares the first two features.
I disagree. Performative work reflects the reality that most office jobs have concrete results that are hard to measure individually, separated in time and/or space from the work, and highly dependent on other office work that shares the first two features.
Also, a lot of them are asynchronous and you’re only actually needed around all the time to keep the latency down when there is a task.
Or if you’re in QA you’re running tests that almost always pass but they do fail sometimes.
Or if you’re in QA you’re running tests that almost always pass but they do fail sometimes.
Wonder if US jobs are now split into 2 distinct roles - doing the work vs taking credit for the work. My limited experience in the Bay area seems to indicate that complaining about other people's work is more career beneficial than doing the work. Is this an effective method for credit/risk re-assignment after the fact?
edit: typos
edit: typos
The show clip which is mentioned at the beginning of the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOQmxNPTJwc
I find it's easier to do performative work in the office.
Having face time with people can be a really good way to imbue the feeling that you're working.
"I saw that person working, therefore they weren't slacking off"
Whereas at home, maybe it's easier to trick an inattentive manager, but you have to let your work represent you even more.
Having face time with people can be a really good way to imbue the feeling that you're working.
"I saw that person working, therefore they weren't slacking off"
Whereas at home, maybe it's easier to trick an inattentive manager, but you have to let your work represent you even more.
Just schedule lots of emails and Slack messages.
I am more or less in this rut now. I do SW planning which I now will be impossible to meet. Hopefully we never hit the deadline because priorities, requirements and resources constantly change. So planning is always revised. I am not the only one in this game. One rule I learnt is to never tell the plan cannot be realized. When this is all too obvious though, I let more experienced coworkers handle the situation with appropriate business speak I am far from mastering yet. Kind of a strange situation for an engineer.
It's a fair thing.
Being really great at your job but never doing anything to market yourself puts you at a disadvantage.
Being great at your job and having a healthy level of "look at what I did" happening is better.
It unfortunately but necessarily follows that there will be people who decide to spend all their time promoting themselves and very little on meaningful work, but this is not a new development.
Being really great at your job but never doing anything to market yourself puts you at a disadvantage.
Being great at your job and having a healthy level of "look at what I did" happening is better.
It unfortunately but necessarily follows that there will be people who decide to spend all their time promoting themselves and very little on meaningful work, but this is not a new development.
This is just the tip of an iceberg. Virtue signalling is at the core of everything nowadays.
Meaningless verbiage in speaking and writing, full of current memes, current useless abstract concepts and other bullshit.
Piles upon piles of useless, redundant abstractions, tons of bullshit code as in J2EE or current node_modeles mass idiocy.
And the real virtue is in making minimal, just right, as close to "what is" as possible, and almost no one of current imposters could do or even understand this.
They think Haskell is about monads lmao.
Meaningless verbiage in speaking and writing, full of current memes, current useless abstract concepts and other bullshit.
Piles upon piles of useless, redundant abstractions, tons of bullshit code as in J2EE or current node_modeles mass idiocy.
And the real virtue is in making minimal, just right, as close to "what is" as possible, and almost no one of current imposters could do or even understand this.
They think Haskell is about monads lmao.
> Virtue signalling is at the core of everything nowadays.
An interesting thing about this phrase is that virtue signaling is obviously good (it's an important leadership technique) but is only ever used as a negative term.
Also implies "vice signaling" should exist as a positive term, but I've never seen that used.
An interesting thing about this phrase is that virtue signaling is obviously good (it's an important leadership technique) but is only ever used as a negative term.
Also implies "vice signaling" should exist as a positive term, but I've never seen that used.
Ironically, using the phrase "virtue signaling" has itself become a form of virtue signaling to the crowd reading Reason and others around here who see it as a negative.
This is like the phrase "politically correct", which started as a neutral term for labeling language that was (or wasn't) up to date with our aspirational norms. I don't think I've ever heard anyone use the phrase except with contempt.
This is like the phrase "politically correct", which started as a neutral term for labeling language that was (or wasn't) up to date with our aspirational norms. I don't think I've ever heard anyone use the phrase except with contempt.
Stewart Lee or someone inspired by him oughta do a bit on virtual signaling similar to his routine on PC:
https://youtu.be/x_JCBmY9NGM
https://youtu.be/x_JCBmY9NGM
There's the opposite to be argued too - going fully remote over the pandemic has negatively impacted the kind of office sociopaths whose contribution was ONLY performative work.
There's one or two I used to put up with pre-pandemic, you know the types, management brown nosers, desk dropping all day long, and trying to command attention where it's simply not warranted. They've dropped off the radar altogether since they can't perform their schtick in person.
There's one or two I used to put up with pre-pandemic, you know the types, management brown nosers, desk dropping all day long, and trying to command attention where it's simply not warranted. They've dropped off the radar altogether since they can't perform their schtick in person.
Do they not perform or do they just not perform to you?
As at a prior job, they didn't disappear, but rather focused on managers and utterly ignored ICs like myself.
As at a prior job, they didn't disappear, but rather focused on managers and utterly ignored ICs like myself.
They're still there, but what they do day-to-day must have changed... I'm not 100% sure what they get up to now, but they could be focusing their A-game on zoom calls with management alright.
However, pre-pandemic they would poll the IC's like myself for whatever information they needed via "casual" desk dropping, then present it to some manager as original thinking. The higher friction of setting up video calls, and being called out in group Slacks seems to have reduced this.
One went as far as requesting a desk move in order to be closer to a manager, so that at least has all changed.
However, pre-pandemic they would poll the IC's like myself for whatever information they needed via "casual" desk dropping, then present it to some manager as original thinking. The higher friction of setting up video calls, and being called out in group Slacks seems to have reduced this.
One went as far as requesting a desk move in order to be closer to a manager, so that at least has all changed.
The first sentence of the article grabbed me the most. “…Seinfeld”, a vintage TV sitcom…”. I guess most of my life is now considered “vintage”.
I cant wait till you realise you too are considered vintage!
The simulation of change is just so much easier than actual change...
Anecdotally, I'd say in middling companies executives seem absorbed with performative work which in turn filters down the ranks into more performative work. Only the top places seem to be able to escape this somewhat (there is always some performative stuff).
Anecdotally, I'd say in middling companies executives seem absorbed with performative work which in turn filters down the ranks into more performative work. Only the top places seem to be able to escape this somewhat (there is always some performative stuff).
> middling companies executives seem absorbed with performative work which in turn filters down the ranks into more performative work
Performative executives promote the finest performative workers into management
I have been to the top, its only marginally better the main difference being the performance continues on later into the night so proportionally more gets done.
Performative executives promote the finest performative workers into management
I have been to the top, its only marginally better the main difference being the performance continues on later into the night so proportionally more gets done.
Having recently left a workplace that turned into performance art I can assure you it’s a growing trend.
Constant brownnosing, polluting slack threads as soon as there is a new topic, speaking overly enthusiastically about the CEO s actions.
Constant brownnosing, polluting slack threads as soon as there is a new topic, speaking overly enthusiastically about the CEO s actions.
This is just inflation of knowledge work. We all have that paper turning guy at the office pre pandemic. Now it’s just evident how many that don’t perform any value
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Because I don't win as an employee if I achieve something. I win if my boss believes that I achieve something, whether I do or not. I win if the people interviewing me believe that I will be effective. Whether I am or not doesn't impact my compensation/career beyond my boss believing it.