Hacker News Reader

Comment by sdrothrock | Hacker News Reader

> Being secret means there is no way you need to follow any standards or reviews. So your work ethic must not be very high.

I'm not following the link between "you don't need standards/reviews" and "your work ethic must not be very high" -- could you elaborate, please? Or was this a typo?

View on HN

Yes, I can elaborate.

Standards are a set of procedures to cooperate and provide a certain level of minimum quality. For many single person hackers not having standards may result in much better quality, but for teams of people who do this because they need to pay rent the quality is always pointed towards the possible minimum, not maximum. Therefore standards usually improve the work of paid teams.

But standards aren't followed per se. Only when your activities are logged and public do you even try (you=normal human being working a day job). But only when ass-kicking or termination of regular payment is feared do people really care about the details. And these usually come from reviews.

So if you have neither standards, nor public exposure (forgot that one), nor reviews your team's quality is probably low.

The same argumentation is usually used to argue that people have to be in the office or they won't do work - it's wrong in that case, it is wrong in this case. People often do good work without being forced to.

Well, I can only say I'm happy you made this experience. In no company I worked until now I could see this. The quality was always horrible, and only carrot&stick could at least improve it to bearable.

It seems you've worked in some horrible companies - good luck in finding better ones in the future. (no sarcasm intended, I really think it's horrible if the only option to get colleagues to work is carrot&stick)

Based on my life experience it is absolutely true that average people work much less if not in an office or other organized workplace. Many times even by their own accounts. This does not mean that there is a minority that can work wherever, or that work even better at home. It all depends on their interest, on the job etc. But yes, offices provide a lot of productivity boosts.

I went from a private office to an open office and worked there for two years a while back. One of my fears going in was that the increased visibility would force people to work more, but in the end it seemed like there was a silent agreement that we'd all turn a blind eye to the fact we were all working six hour days, including the boss...

If morale is high, people are motivated (like a nonprofit working for a praiseworthy cause) and there are other feedback mechanisms (like market forces in a startup) then you don't need your employers to be in an office, constantly monitored.

But none of that is true for the NSA.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com