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Comment by vkk8 | Hacker News Reader

And, ironically, much of the work that the "normies" do is something tech guys could to hundred times faster. It's stuff like manually copy-pasting numbers from a crappy proprietary software A to a crappy proprietary software B or entering numbers from some system to Excel while it could be done by just directly pulling the numbers from the database the system uses.

Seriously, modern work is all about knowing what to do and how to do it rather than putting in a large number of hours executing a straightforward task.

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Hmmmmm, this is actually kind of interesting - perhaps that "continuous grind through criminally unoptimized UI" type of work is what actually constructs the "this is how you use a computer" mindset that these people have - because it's all they know.

Developers are always about optimization and automation and tweaking and refinement, and their tools reflect this constant pursuit of efficiency that constantly transcends and questions how a job is expressed (UI, mental modeling) and completed.

No other industry - ironically including technical management roles (maybe even especially so?) - seems to have this sort of focus.

I even hesitantly wonder if the biggest similarity I've ever seen is with accessibility type setups with screen readers and whatnot. (Ha, that says a lot about the fundamental impedance mismatch of developer tooling!)

Or maybe if you have to painstakingly copy those finance numbers and hour reports, you will be thinking about them more. You look busy enough to qualify as working, giving you time to actually think.

All the time tracking tools I've ever used (at software companies!) had a bad UI. Sometimes we even have to track the same hours into two different tools. Can't we automate time-tracking away? My explanation is that this is the result of cultural evolution. Companies that make people think twice about their time and spendings are more successful. People will copy whatever successful companies are doing.

> You look busy enough to qualify as working, giving you time to actually think.

This is so messed up - and yet so interesting as a direct result of that.

I've only ever considered the idea of "looking busy" in the sense of whether or not someone is trying to optimize for shirking actual mental engagement.

I never thought of how doing that can actually make room to think. But that's so logically obvious once you mush the two ideas together!

I say this is messed up because I can totally see this being both necessary and helpful in certain situations. Wow.

I can never do tedious work quickly. As soon as I notice work that should be automated, I start cursing at the developer of the tool I am using for not offering an easy interface for me to plug into and just automate it, instead of having to rewrite the whole thing from scratch if I want to have it automated (and that's usually too time consuming, so I don't do it). So I'd be constantly unhappy doing it, which is a recipe for avoiding it, ergo being slow at it.

That's why I am a huge fan of free software (and I've spent years on it too).

Hello Necovek, I would like to connect with you on linkedin because I also understand and see this problem

This link shows a touchline between using api and not using api https://www.swyx.io/api-economy/

But how can we build some tool for telling product managers that they should fix there automating proces?

thanks for the rec!

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