this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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The lesson is to work really, really slow
This is actually exactly the lesson. If the issue in this case was the mouse jiggler, then just working slow would be perfectly fine?! Are they all stupid?
The problem is that companies have unrealistic expectation of how you spend your day. Everybody knows that most “white collar” jobs don’t actually have you working 8hrs every day with the only time you stop working being bathroom breaks and lunch. People take all kinds of informal breaks and get distracted throughout the day. So there is this weird thing where everybody knows that, but companies have to pretend like they don’t, which leads to asinine decisions like keyboard and mouse trackers to determine if people are actually working. Which then leads to people looking for solutions that earn them their little informal breaks back, which everybody takes and are perfectly fine. But again, we sort of pretend water cooler time doesn’t occur.
It’s some sort of perverse arms race built around a shared lie we all pretend we don’t know about.
I would like to point out its not even we. Its upper management and 'the stockholders'. Everyone from the peon to lower management knows that people don't work continuously for their shift. I doubt anyone can work continuously for that long and not go crazy.
But the reward from mid and management and above for completing your work is more work. Which is great for them since you completing more work means they get bonuses.
I'm gonna reduce that. Shareholders don't give a shit about working hours. They just care about revenue and expenses.
This is purely a management issue. Upper management might insist on these metrics as a way to crack down on productivity. In my personal experience as a dev, middle management doesn't give about metrics unless someone (upper management) forces them to. Because at the end of the day, its just a pain in the ass hounding subordinates about trivial shit if theyre actually performing where it matters. So anecdotally, I will say this seems to exclusively come from upper management. But I'm sure people have different experiences.
The problem is that upper management is usually so divorced from the real day to day problems that the easy win they can take to their superiors is stupid shit like apm metrics.
You are being far too generous to many of your colleagues. I assure you there are plenty of “peons” and lower/middle management playing teachers pet who enable this crap. I’m not saying you are strictly exception, but you are definitely not representative of a significant portion of leadership.