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Comment by dagw | Hacker News Reader

That he can count on you to do what needs to be done. You will go out of your way for her. If you've ever said "this isn't my job" then you will have only an adversarial relationship.

True to the extent that it is actually related to your job in a larger sense and doing so won't adversely affect your ability to do your 'real' job. Many managers will just keeping adding more and more responsibilities to their 'best' workers until they either start saying "no", quit or burn out, often without any malice or ill intent.

That being said there are better ways of phrasing it than "this isn't my job". Saying something along the lines of "if I do that I won't have time to finish X by next Tuesday as I promised. It might be worth checking with Dave and his team if they have someone who can work on it. Otherwise I'll be happy to do it, as long as you're OK with pushing X back a week".

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> That being said there are better ways of phrasing it than "this isn't my job". Saying something along the lines of "if I do that I won't have time to finish X by next Tuesday as I promised. It might be worth checking with Dave and his team if they have someone who can work on it. Otherwise I'll be happy to do it, as long as you're OK with pushing X back a week".

Your whole comment was spot-on, but this part in particular resonated with me.

Over my relatively short career, there have been waves of being overloaded and then feeling like I had a handle on things. Whenever it’s been the latter, I can usually trace it back to being consistent with giving folks the simple cause and effect of what they’re asking of me. It helps that I happen to enjoy basically all the work (even remotely) relevant to my role, so when someone asks me for something (for perhaps the 10th time that day), I kindly say that I’d be more than happy to do that “..but this is what that will mean for the first 9 things you asked me for today..”.

I’ve found this to be an organic, effective way of filtering out priorities from background noise without creating that alienation between you and your boss/coworkers that was mentioned further up.

> "Otherwise I'll be happy to do it, as long as you're OK with pushing X back a week"

While I agree with your sentiment, this only works in a workplace where management is willing to adjust deadlines and expectations in these situations. I've seen and experienced (bad) managers with a mindset of "Just get it done" or worse. It's usually a great sign that it's time to move on.

>>Many managers will just keeping adding more and more responsibilities to their 'best' workers until they either start saying "no", quit or burn out, often without any malice or ill intent.

I consider such people total failure as managers and try to avoid.

When I'm in the employee seat, I try to avoid managers that use blanket statements of people. The 'best' workers, where everyone -- including their manager -- goes when they need the hard questions answered, will usually quietly exit. They prefer not to cause a big scene, knowing their value. Value usually has a big catalyst in this, often appearing sudden and unexpected, exit.

Some of these 'total failures' will go on to outdo even their own expectations. Some will do as you prophesize and 'fail' in their burnout, get fired and fade away. The strong ones will come back from it. People quit people, not jobs.

>People quit people, not jobs.

To be fair, I've seen organizations so dysfunctional that even good managers could not protect their people from ambient shittiness. Below certain threshold there is no salvation for organization.

I find the biggest mistake people make is that they think they're getting rewarded for what they did. That isn't how it works.

Think of it. When you go into an electronics store looking for a new TV, do you give the salesperson money based on what he did for you in the past ? You pay for expected future benefit. That's what you select the TV for.

Then think about it from a freelancer hiring process. Freelancers, like employees, are paid before they do anything (or at least the rewards are negotiated).

So the way to get maximum benefit for your job is to slowly improve, but stay far away from your top performance (and maybe you'll actually have enough energy left to have a hobby). You want planned obsolescence tactics, for yourself. Version 2.0 is just around the corner ! Do you want it ?

So the correct way to think about this is "let's talk about what you'd like me to do". I would shy away from the definiteness in those statements, for 2 reasons. Firstly you're unable to make those assessments reliable (so think about it, you're saying, money now, TV comes in 2 weeks, then deliver a substandard model in 2 weeks. If there is one way to turn the most kind person in the world against you, this is it). Secondly, you want to help them to make a decision. You have information they don't have. They have information you don't have. The best move is likely the one you figure out together.

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