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Comment by Buttons840 | Hacker News Reader

The middle manager thinks, "the time and effort I spend on my job can be automated, yay!", never considering the second order effects.

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Fortunately for middle and line managers, the vaunted 1:1 hasn't been automated yet, nor does it scale, so the technology doesn't allow managers to have more than, say, 60 direct report effectively. Meeting with each of them for 1 hour every other week only leaves 20 hours every other week for work that isn't a 1:1. I think middle management will be safe for a little while longer.

Why is meeting with direct reports needed every other week?

Less frequent than that and people start forgetting the gripes and inconveniences they need help with.

Managers are supposed to work on the system, at least in theory. 1on1’s are for the manager like server metrics are for the SRE. An early warning system of future problems. Ideally you can fix issues before the problem blows up into an alarm.

A professional midwestern 1-on-1 starts with the assumption that no work was performed since the last one and it falls on the underling to prove otherwise during this time.

> 1on1’s are for the manager like server metrics are for the SRE.

I'm not sure that is accurate. As a manager, I have a bunch of production metrics on my people. I can tell who's getting work done, who isn't, who has high defect rates in their work, who makes fewer defects, who is positive ROI, and who is not paying their keep. Where the one on ones are useful is when they are informed by the metrics, and those conversations don't take anywhere near one hour every two weeks. They take 10 minutes - 15 minutes, max.

Ok sure but there’s more to people than raw output numbers. Where do you get info on how they’re doing as people? Whether they’re pulling 12 hour days and that’s why the output looks good or they’re happy as a clam living their best life and that’s why output is great?

Sometimes you gotta kick people to go take a vacation lest their mind/body takes an unplanned vacation for them. Even if the raw numbers are looking great. You’d prefer to have a planned outage wouldn’t you?

And hey, if you don’t need a full hour, it’s okay to make 1on1s shorter! Few people will complain about getting more time back in their lives.

But be warned: The good stuff usually comes out 5min before the end of a meeting when an employee says ”Oh yeah one more thing that’s been on my mind …”. It takes time to relax into that area of concern that’s a little scary to bring up.

Longtime manager of technical people here and can confirm the "oh yeah one more thing" is where so much of the really good stuff comes up.

No matter how explicitly you state it, ask for it, overcommunicate that you're approachable even if seemingly busy... people are averse to the impression that they're interrupting their management even when they have something important to discuss. When you create the space and have even that quick 10 to 15 minute chat every couple of weeks, you're creating space for your people to have your attention without worrying about getting your attention. And people often take advantage of that path of least resistance.

So many of the most important conversations to have with the team are less about their output and more about things they've got going on or need to know _despite_ their output. All the standard sprint metrics are just one piece of the puzzle.

I agree with you that there's more to people than numbers. But it's a lot easier to surface that when you have a frame of reference and some consistency in how you measure:

"so, last week you had a -23.5% contribution... You usually are on the positive side, so what's up?" and the employee tells me that their lead stuck them on a project where they hand no experience, and didn't have time to learn how to do x or y before getting thrown at a ticket... or, "I'm having some issues with <personal>..."

Stuff as a manager you can sometimes help a lot with... and other times, well, you can be supportive. Just because numbers are involved does not mean we have to be cold and heartless... At the same time, I've found managing without numbers to just lead to cliqe-y political culture where people's ability to schmooze is rewarded more than their contribution to the team and that drives away the most effective contributors.

> And hey, if you don’t need a full hour, it’s okay to make 1on1s shorter!

Agree... I think I just realized that the exception should be a long 1 on 1. Just because I schedule 15 minutes doesn't preclude taking more time if there's something in the 1 on 1 that should take longer.

> I can tell who's getting work done, who isn't, who has high defect rates in their work, who makes fewer defects, who is positive ROI, and who is not paying their keep

I've been doing engineering management for ten years and I've never seen a set of metrics that can tell you these things.

What software engineering metrics tell you who has positive ROI?

If you’re only talking to your directs for 10-15 minutes every two weeks you are neglecting your duties as a manager. The standard is 30 minutes 1x week with every direct report.

Maybe the idealised standard but certainly not what is going on at most companies

Perhaps. That’s my standard for my team and the managers that report to me.

This is an interesting take, and one that directly contradicts most leadership books. Are you aware of that, and how did you come upon this management style?

In manager speak, because the meeting was created by someone higher on the org chart, it doesn't stand to reason that we can find fault with it.

Just wait until employees are told to do their 1:1 with a chatbot...

Pshht, don't feed them with more such ideas.

Heh that might even be a better experience

And the good middle manager (yes, they exist ! and yes, they are useful !) thinks "the not very useful part of my job can be automated, yay more time for the actually interesting/useful thing !"

Realistically, the middle manager thinks, "the part of my job where it looks like I'm doing something can be automated, yay more time for 3-4 day weekends!"

The middle manager thinks, "the time and effort I spend on my job can be automated, yay!", never considering the second order effects.

This is why when a cashier at the supermarket tells me that instead of waiting in line I can use the self check-out lanes, I tell her "I don't want to help a robot take away your job."

Usually they don't understand. But sometimes you can see them start to think about what's happening.

The cashier would rather you leave them in peace than hit them with the same tiresome self-congratulatory remark they hear day in day out. Please use the self checkouts instead.

You mean to tell me that my joke that I should get the item for free when it doesn't ring up; you mean to tell me I'm not hilarious and that the cashier's heard it before?

Please don't use the checkout, why should corporations worth billions and tens of billions (I guess that's what Walmart is worth) get to outsource some of their work onto their clients?

As a client, using the self-checkout is (usually) a choice I get to make. I choose to use the self-checkout because it is often faster than waiting in a line. I am thankful for the opportunity to put in my own effort in exchange for faster completion and reduced prices.

it's only faster because they fired half the employees and the other lanes are backed up.

I remember reading a study somewhere that the self-checkout isn't actually faster. It feels faster because you're busy instead of passively standing in line.

That depends on the implementation. E.g. Sam's Club lets you scan items as you put them into your cart and just walk past the registers.

In the local grocery store at rush hour, cashier lines are long and self-checkout tends to be quicker for buying 3 items. Taking a whole cart into self-checkout is slower than a cashier, because the self-checkout has like a 5% chance per item of going into "assistance needed" mode.

also why benefit large corporations by walking around long aisles comparing and choosing items, carying them around and walk back to the entrance?

get those good old shopkeepers to do it while you stand with your list out front.

What's important to me is my time. I don't care whether it's spent scanning things myself or waiting in line for someone else to scan them. I also don't care about punishing Walmart, so whether they "get to" do something is totally uninteresting to me.

I just want to pay for my items and get out of the store, in whatever way works.

This is nearly getting to the point of "don't use shovel's, think of all the ditch diggers we'll put out of work"

I find places with scan as you shop apps way better than waiting in a checkout line. I get a running total of what I have in the cart, and when I'm done, I just leave without a line.

I saw on tiktok (yeah I know) where a lawyer says they never use it because you can be liable for stealing for anything you forgot scan. I never use it cause occasionally the cashier will let you know that there is a coupon for something you are purchasing.

At least 9 times out of 10, the self-checkout is a better experience for me. I can scan things at my own pace, pack them in my bags the way I like, and listen to my D&D podcast rather than having to interact with a stranger, unless the system acts up.

As pxl97 said, I preferred being able to scan things as I shopped and not have to stop at the checkout except to pay, but the one place around here that had that discontinued it a few months ago.

We need to push back hard against the idea that automation is "stealing" people's jobs; the promise of automation has always been that of more money for less work. We need to remind everyone of that, and reverse the trend of automation simply putting more and more money in the pockets of the already-wealthy at everyone else's expense.

I can do self-checkout about 5x faster than the clerk can

I do want a robot to take their job. I also want us to ensure that everyone does have a fulfilling, non-robotic job available to them. I think those cashiers would happier, say, painting a mural on the wall of the grocery store.

Of course, this gets into UBI territory and making sure that as a society we are not just replacing menial jobs to then abandon the people who would have had those jobs.

I would be ecstatic if I could automate my entire job!

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