Hacker News Reader

Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

Don't you just love it when someone with zero direct reports thinks he can tell managers how to manage?

It's a job, it's not a fucking Montessori school, or a correspondence course. If you don't want your employability to dry up once rockstar ninjas become commonplace enough that the demand bubble for them pops, you will cultivate the essential skills of showing up when and where your employer demands and otherwise being their huckleberry. Know what that means? It means someone who can be counted on. Showing up at the office on time is a first-line test of dependability. That's why companies ask it of you.

View on HN

That is an utterly antiquated position. I bet you don't even let poor Bob Cratchit have time off at Christmas.

In this day and age, dependability is delivering your tasks accurately and on time. Everything else is just chaff.

More managers should get with the program, and understand that skilled workers want to Work to Task, Not To Time.

We must satisfy the emotional needs of management before thinking about the product.

> That is an utterly antiquated position.

Not antiquated enough: throughout history the large majority of workers have been farmers. Even without being able to read and write, they were/are entirely responsible of their work - and farming wasn't easy at all.

Same for artisans, shopkeepers at al. When people are not bossed around they can manage themselves.

> tell managers how to manage

The truth today is sadly, that there are not much managers left who are really able to "manage".

If your "style" of management needs constant synchronous contact to the people you manage, you aren't a manager but a glorified courier.

Understanding that cost of housing, commute length and variability and paycheck are intrinsically linked is a first-line test of employers not being stupid. That's why employees ask it of you.

Dependability is getting your work done on time (this includes attending meetings about said work, etc...), and being able to quickly address issues when something breaks. Everything else does not really matter. As a manager, I don't care if someone is on Facebook or playing a game every time I see them, as long as their work is getting done. The logical conclusion is that remote is just an extension of that philosophy. I'm not in the business of babysitting adults and never plan to be.

I wonder if the people who are so against remote work, are the concerned they don't have the skill set to only be judged on output?

> If you don't want your employability to dry up once rockstar ninjas become commonplace enough that the demand bubble for them pops,

This is the crux of your argument, and it's debatable whether this will ever happen. My feeling is that rockstars will always be rare. I don't think this is a function of supply and demand but rather just human nature.

I personally could be a rockstar if I wanted to. I bet a lot of us could. I just don't care to organize my entire life around my work. It's not that I don't know how to do it, there's no magic trick about it, it's not some rarefied thing that only one in a million can figure out.

I just want to focus on other things, not vomit code at feverish pace all day long. I don't think anyone but the most driven among us ever will.

Rockstars are not created by market pressure. Therefore there is no asset bubble for their services waiting to pop. You and I can safely sit here and dream up ways to lift up the entire profession because it won't get stolen out from under us by ninjas.

>Showing up at the office on time is a first-line test of dependability.

If you truly believe that, your opinions are severely lacking some level of realistic perspective.

I get what you're selling, and I agree to a point, especially about the "being dependable" part, which is why I have been that. On the other hand, my experience with my own creativity is that it peaks around midnight. I wrote my doctoral dissertation over many, many nights. I was never creative in the morning, and I think many people are just like me and don't even realize it. Thus, if you really want the best I have to offer, you would allow me to set my own schedule.

Thought HN was full of health nuts for whom the effects of blue light on circadian rhythms, endocrine function, and brain function are second only perhaps to gut microbiota in terms of actionable health breakthroughs?

Point being, have you considered that your "night owl" tendencies are an artificial condition caused by too much electronic device exposure late at night, and that a change in lifestyle might do you good?

I use f.lux. Cuts out most of the blue spectrum. But being a night owl is not the only reason I get more done. No one bothers me at midnight. No one calls or texts or emails. I'm left to my own thoughts. Add to that the fact that people have been describing themselves as night owls since before electric lighting was invented, I don't think that is a full explanation.

I have total blackout curtains in my rooms. My circadian rhythm has no idea if it's 12 noon or 12 midnight. I don't think anything magical happens to make it unhealthy for me to wake up at 9 am Pacific time vs 9am eastern.

Doesn't this conflate chronology with the position of the sun? Do you think it's healthy to live in an artificial day cycle?

If you exclude the position of the sun, then what bearing would chronology have? As long as you are on a consistent cycle with sufficient sleep, it wouldn't make any sense to think your body cares either way. To say otherwise would deduce that moving from one time zone to another forever puts you at odds with your circadian rhythm.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com