Ask HN: Is it expected to always be working during working hours? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is it expected to always be working during working hours?

3 pointsusrme2 comments

I am a fairly new employee at a rather large company and when I was just starting out I had a lot of things to learn (as expected), so I did a little bit of everything to get the hang of it all. As time went on I have been given my own projects to work on, but there are moments when I am unable to do anything because of a dependency on someone else down the line. In times like these, is it expected of me to find myself a (side)task to keep me busy or is it understandable that I am on "hold", so to speak, and dealing with things that aren't necessary work-related (i.e. doing errands, reading, taking video courses etc)? I'm new to the IT industry (and to working full-time in general), so maybe all of this is commonplace knowledge to people with more experience.

It depends on the company culture and the individual's personality. There are also two orthogonal issues, taking care of personal business during normal business hours and inefficiencies in the the internal workplace process.

At a high level of abstraction, being on hold because of a dependency indicates a problem in a business process. Fixing the problem or mitigating its effects seems like a responsible thing to do. On the other hand, if there is some pressing personal business, down time created by the inefficiency might be a good time to schedule the time away from the office.

My random advice from the internet: look around and see what your co-workers are doing. Talk to your boss. Keep in mind the type of person you want to be and to become. Consider the possibility that a job without enough interesting and important work to keep you engaged is more likely to hinder your career over the long term than advance your skills.

Good luck.

I've personally never worked in such a large organization that this is a problem, but I would imagine that you should spend that time improving your knowledge in the domain you work in, or attempting to help co-workers with their tasks. Safest bet though is to ask and observe your seniors.

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