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Comment by burlesona | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like a bad situation at Amazon, but if my company wanted to pay me indefinitely to do nothing, I have plenty of ideas for how I could use the time…

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Have been in this situation before. Sounds like fun, actually melts your brain.

I know someone who has been in this situation for _years_. But his true passion is an outside of work outdoors hobby, which is where he spends about 38 of his work hours each week.

Sounds like this wouldn't fly at amazon, where they would be just happy to have grounds to actually fire you.

Depends on what you do with the hours you actually work, as well as your previous history. There is a whole meta associated with this, but basically if you establish yourself as the person that people message first to get answers to questions, especially outside of your team, there is a very low chance you are getting fired.

What meta? I’m not familiar, do you have more context or a link?

There isn't a set guide to this. The idea is that you want people to view you as a loss in teams ability to get things done if you were ever to leave, but not in the sense of raw hours worked but the knowledge and decision making process.

https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes/

What we're talking about is a sort if hybrid between a Tech Lead and Architect, but not quite like either. You have less direct responsibility, but people come to you independently with questions and review requests, because you can quickly generate detailed and accurate answers.

Wow, I guess that is good for him. What would he do if he needed to find a new job?

Go get a new job. You don’t have to tell prospective employers how much time you spent a week doing stuff for your previous company. They will just see that you worked for company X for years Y and that will probably be good enough.

I guess? If I were in his position and worked in technology (he doesn't, see sibling comment), I'd be worried about skill degradation.

I've never been hired because of my resume, though that definitely helps with an interview. There was always a skills test.

I suppose you could grind leetcode or otherwise cram for a skills test, though. You definitely have enough time during the week.

He doesn't work in technology, so he'd just go find another job and go back to working like everyone else.

Worst job I've ever had was one where I had nothing to do and yet I was forced to go to the office every day.

How does it melt your brain. I can think of about 20 things I could be working in instead of writing code for my company. You want to pay me, but not give me work? Great, I’ll pick from my list of things and do that instead. Even if I’m not creating something, I can learn new things by reading books or watching tutorials.

A lot of the commenters are missing it: it's not that you have _nothing to do_: it's that you're being told to find a job ASAP, in the next 8-12 weeks. It's very easy to say "the first thing I'd do is take a 2 week vacation", but, the expectation is you're finding a position ASAP -- and there are none. So you need to start practicing your Leetcode for our absurd interview process as an industry. The last thing you're thinking is "I should pump out some graphics shaders and get permission to open source them!"

Or, don’t try to get a job at a FAANG company. I work for a Fortune 100 company and we never do anything like leetcode stuff in our interviews.

Thank you, sounds silly, but I had lost perspective and thought BigCo always would do this.

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I my experience, you aren't actually doing nothing and having nothing asked of you.

You are more likely tasked with things that require spinning your wheels. Boring, pointless, and directionless work that doesn't challenge you. It just melts your brain.

I was stuck in one of these roles for a while. It's mind numbing.

While you can't work on many projects - due to IP rules - you can often improve your skills and learn. Do you have a personal improvement/education budget? Use it to take relevant courses, buy books, etc. Do you have an equipment budget? Use it to upgrade to the ergonomic keyboard.

The worst case is you still get laid off but now you have things you can take forward. A better case is that you find another role at the company with the new understanding.

Either way, follow the policy exactly. Don't screw around and give them grounds to fire you.

It wouldn’t be literally nothing - in practice it would be meetings, reviews, reports, interviews, etc.

Keep in mind you are still likely bound by an expansive intellectual property clause in your employment contract that says the company owns all work you do, even outside normal business hours.

If I could be paid to browse HN and make my un-sellable software synths and path tracers all day I’d be as happy as can be. Even if I could theoretically work on something I could sell, I’d probably rather write something fun than something useful if food on the table was already secured.

Ignoring the creative work you mention, I do have some experience with browsing. Prior to my retirement, I read RSS feeds for maybe an hour a day and Hacker News for an additional 15 minutes. After 2 years of retirement, I probably still spend an hour a day on RSS feeds but Hacker News has expanded to an hour a day. I didn't expect to enjoy HN so much given the opportunity.

I don't miss my Silicon Valley job, though...

NY just made such invention assignment clauses retroactively illegal and void as of November, wooo for anyone living in NY

It's pretty obvious that your employer owns work you do for your employer, and things you do on company time or using company equipment. But this "they own everything you do forever even at 2AM at home using your own computer" meme gets repeated all the time and it's complete bullshit regardless of what's actually in your employment contract. And this ignores the fact that the vast majority of employees in the US don't have employment contracts at all and/or live in states that explicitly make these broad types of IP assignment clauses illegal or at least unenforceable.

Is that clause going to hold up in court if the work is done outside work hours and done without use of any work hardware or software?

My understanding has always been that the line is simply to do my own projects on my time with my hardware.

non competes are not enforceable in california and a few other US states iirc, although if there were to ever be an IP lawsuit, it would be a war of attrition (with odds highly stacked against the engineer)

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