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Comment by spacedog11 | Hacker News Reader

The best kind of "screwing around" is screwing around in plain sight. Once, I had a fresh grad in my team and I had to get him up to speed. I noticed he was taking more than the usual time to do basic tasks, yet whenever I passed by his desk, he had three terminals open and had c++ code here and there and compilation errors on another window. Two months later, he would move to a different company. Turns out that he was just practicing his programming skills, and all of this time I assumed he was working on assigned tasks.

EDIT: spelling

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See also: converting your current Kindle read to plain text and pasting it into your ide or email editor...

We need more "plain sight slacking" tips to be on the lookout for, so we can stay vigilant.

That's me in 2003 connecting to the university Unix servers and using command line ICQ and IRC clients during work hours.

Yup!

Now I use RDP to do the same with telegram (there is no not-shitty CLI telegram client)

I feel that it's easier just to have clear tasks with deadlines, using decent project management software like say Asana, Monday, or whatever.

If they're meeting the deadlines and the work is good, why bother wasting time being big bro and treating them like a child? Why not just go by results? (you can check commits as well, and CI not going off will at least tell you nothing is broken)

If you work in an environment where you're expected to be busy at all times even without much to do - well.. things like this come in handy.

I agree. I'm just questioning the management logic of being "expected to be busy at all times even without much to do". I remember some papers linking boredom and leisure activity with creativity. Creativity is important for programming.

I'm expected to appear busy ;-)

Once had a well paying job that I kind of got tired of not having much to do (long story: tried to quit, offered to be available on contract basis, nope they gave me awesome retention bonus, was asked to just stick around until company does X Y Z). Anyway I came in late, took 2 hour lunch, left early. Still was tired of being bored and was all caught up on YouTube. Got to the point I just told boss I’m not playing this pretend work game anymore, in fact I’m not even going to check my email anymore, call me when you need something from me. I did about 2-4 hours of work per month for several months. Picked up another job, eventually the company had done XYZ and they paid me retention and a 12 month severance. Never understood any of it, but didn’t complain.

Oh god not Asana.

Curious. Why don't you like Asana? What do you prefer instead?

I remember back in the day surfing the web in links (and later w3m) over an ssh connection in putty

Oh yeah...or eww within Emacs works like a charm as well :)

The ssh connection had the bonus attribute of being a secure channel to a server I owned and not subject to logging.

Or, realize how much work you actually need the worker to do, and stop insisting on 40+ hour work weeks. Pay them for the work they are doing, not their hours. That's what salary positions are SUPPOSED to exist for. If they complete their tasks quickly, then let them go home.

In school I'd SSH into my home server and use lynx to browse the web.

(Sshing got me around the firewall at school.)

> Two months later, he would move to a different company. Turns out that he was just practicing his programming skills

People sometimes challenge Google's interviewing process as being unnecessarily stringent. What I can say about it is that you won't find BS like this happening at Google.

Nor at many other companies either which are not doing Google or FANG-style interview.

This is bullshit. Why would any interview process filter out the factors that lead to screwing around, working on other things, or just burnout? They won’t and they can’t, as these are dynamic factors. Also I’m curious as to why you think a white board interview of all things is the deciding factor in at even minimizing this behavior.

A plausible reason why these behaviors are less common at google and Facebook etc is that they are paying much closer to “efficiency wages”.. if you’re working at the typical tech or Corp company you’re probably making shit pay, and why wouldn’t you study to get something better..

Google pays much better than average and is already top resume signaling, there’s just much less incentive to screw around.

Googles process is still not fantastic at filtering for general critical thinking.

Irony: the person referred to in the story may very well ended up at Google.

I know this possibility first hand. I worked for a shit shop nearby a Google office. My own fucking manager did whiteboard practice and ended up at google a few months later.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but google officially gives 20% of your time to screw around.

I don’t think it’s a free pass quite like that.

Probably because Google's corporate spyware is better.

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