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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Employee (individual contributor / middle manager) Pro: More work and fewer meetings

LOL, IF ONLY!

Another example that people in silicon valley (and yc in particular) have no idea what goes on in the real world.

(HN reply in one window, with skype and webex open in 2 other windows, my 5th and 6th meetings today. I've been on HN for 10 years with over 5,000 contributions, almost all while in meetings, ignoring talking heads and engaging you guys. You don't actually believe I'd be here if I had meaningful work to do, do you?)

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Individual contributors where I work have significantly fewer meetings than people who choose the leadership route.

What makes my company less real world than yours?

As soon as I indicated I would try exploring the leadership path (I had originally intended to only progress as an individual contributor, but I'm bored and I'll learn any skills I can at this point), my managers gave me the role and immediately I was swamped with meetings. I don't resent it, but I'm going to see if I can push to streamline the behaviors that lead to this. My time is now even more precious than ever and I have to find ways to reclaim it.

Which is why "tech industry" here needs a proper definition. Everything here seems to be geared towards the author's own experience (which is limited, like all of our careers are), and is very "startup bay area centric". Likely most of the companies he's referring to have anywhere between 5 and 100 employees and have been created in the last 5 years. In the larger "tech industry"(as I would define it), these companies are actually in the minority.

Meaningful. There's the key word.

And no. Me neither. :)

[EDIT] That said, meetings effective are a manager's, CEO's, and founder's job. So in comparison to them, we have do have fewer meetings.

And the execs have even more than that.

Do you see the irony in accusing others of not understanding the real world while making assertions based on personal anecdotes?

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