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Comment by le-mark | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if you call it burnout or what but I've done very little at my jobs the past few years. I can't make myself code. I may do one day of work a week. But oddly, this has been enough! I was sitting on my hands at a contract gig for over a month, told a friend I feared I may be fired. Then got a good review from the client manager. Blew me away.

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I've found that the more time I spend doing low level code at my job, the less work they think I'm doing. The more you email and be at your desk, the harder they think you're working. I've realized that performance is relative rather than absolute, and if you're the only tech guy working in the office, there's no one to compare your performance against.

Just last week, they dumped a huge amount of server work on me. The next day, I told them I was working remotely to get the work done, and they get pissed. They make it seem like I'm taking the day off. Huh?

That's the double edged sword, and worse still is that they don't realize how much of an art getting old or not inherently compatible things to interact correctly is. Duct tape, shell scripts, and even small programs to reshape data are an art.

Apologies in advance for the unsolicited advice.

Please just be careful. I worry that your in-office retirement is going to make finding your next job very difficult.

I had a job like that and remember reading about a guy who did literally nothing for 7 years before getting caught and then suddenly realizing they hadn't been developing their career skills and found it very difficult to have years of experience without the actual skill for the apparent experience he should have had.

I quickly left that job and worked harder and am very glad to have gotten everything back on track and am much happier with life because of it.

> I worry that your in-office retirement is going to make finding your next job very difficult.

Honest question: how so?

Well, in honesty when I do work I get stuff my manager cares about done. My theory is I'm surviving on "success is binary", either do whats expected or not. Or did you mean something else?

Had do make a throaway to comment... Same situation, but I'm getting a promotion! In fact, I refused one last year, but now I'm getting one I like.

I don't like the place anymore, and can't absolutely care about anything there (I do like some of the people). The pay is good, so I didn't quit. I though the problem would self correct once I get a bad evaluation or something.

How can people not notice I'm working one day a week?

I used to work with a programmer who literally did nothing for over a year - he came into the office and sat there browsing the web. He was the highest paid employee. Everyone knew it was happening (including the clients) but no one mentioned it.

The company was too small to promote him to a manager position, which as far as I can tell is how the situation is often dealt with in big companies, i.e. pass the buck to another department.

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