This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
As a manager of sorts, I already know if people are doing their job: the work gets done. I'm involved enough to know how much time their work should take and see through their BS since I do similar work.
Maybe these bosses should do the same: do similar work and you'll know when they're BS-ing you.
No, absolutely not! When you're a manager you are supposed to stop doing actual work and instead spend your time in meetings, making PowerPoints and "navigating office politics".
Scumbags
"to make sure they're working"
A boss' job is not to babysit. Keep the higher ups off the team's backs, run the management infrastructure needed for stuff like project planning, stuff like that. I am not at my desk for my whole work day. However not once has anyone been less than very pleased with my output. More time at my desk would not mean more work - it would mean less. The recharge time I take means that I almost universally have a good attitude at work and I'm good at untangling problems that others either can't deal with or are avoiding dealing with.
Forcing presenteeism rather than a results-based approach is utterly idiotic.
But more face stare at screen make more money happen.
Line go up?
That's a weird way to spell spyware.
No, I like "bossware". It tells you exactly what it is. It's "spyware from your boss".
Time to create a new anti-bossware product, and call it Worker. Maybe it could be peer-to-peer to help propagate newly identified Bossware signatures. Some kind of worker's collective as it were.
Workerware like mouse jigglers and other keepalive tools that lets you focus on work instead of having to keep the screensaver from turning on.
It's almost like those bosses don't have any real work to do. Sounds like dead wood and ideal candidates for downsizing to me.
Ironically, my manager was someone who did very little “managing” and mostly did hands on work (I work IT), and he just got laid off.
Meanwhile all the leeches that spout BS metrics that are faulty are all still here. Idiots all around.
Ah, the many joys of Middle Management. To quote The Hitchhiker's Guide to Earth:
A middle manager’s day typically consists of:
Man, Douglas Adams was a real one.
I worked remote tech for about ten years, and rotated through several managers. The incompetent ones were easy to spot because they “led” by squatting on bossware like toads.
the more I am watched, the less productive I am. both in actual output, and in appearance.
want to watch my every move? okay, I now spend time ensuring it appears acceptable when I am using it. but I'm also going to avoid using my watched device whenever possible to do work via other methods, like writing things out in a notebook instead of digitally
thankfully I am (for now) not under any sort of digital supervision. that I am aware of.
Boss daddy!
I manage a team and cannot imagine having the time or desire for this shit.
My team gets a lot of stuff done per quickly and reliably. They are probably better developers than I ever was. I don't need to know how they spend minute by minute.
Maybe we should do an uno-reverse and use bossware to keep tabs on our bosses.
I want to know exactly how much time they spend each week just navigating to a directory I sent them, so I know exactly how many hours I can spend on break
I want to know how much time was spent "golfing for work"
Now let's make KPIs for them that are about as useful as the ones they make for us. Let's make "Time spent navigating directories" a positive value that should be optimized for.
Someone tell remote managers that daily status meetings for teams of 5-10 people should never be more than an hour long.
In person, they are "stand up" meetings to encourage them to be as uncomfortable and short as possible. Over web meeting, that convention tends to fly out the window.
daily status of an hour is fucked
we have a weekly for our ten person team, and that is long if it goes 15 minutes
tbf, that's the team meeting, not project — project meetings are longer
Yeah, what you described is how it should be.
Each person:
That could be as little as 45 seconds per person if done properly.
We stick to that format with minor variations:
Its supposed to take 10-15 minutes but it takes up to an hour, sometimes more. I usually tune in late and sometimes pretend I lost my internet connection halfway through.
I used to get mad at these but it unironically sounds like a nice open culture
It pays badly and it can be disorganized, but no one I work with is that bad of a person, what we do is more useful to real people than a lot of tech companies and there's no nasty politics to speak of. So yes, it has its upsides.
That's crazy. I'd actually rather work. Or take a shit. Or do literally anything else.
I've become quite good at paying just enough attention that I can jump in if anything important comes up, and meanwhile continuing to work. I don't turn my camera on.
Honestly even that is for beginner teams, frankly. If there's good shared understanding, clear work, and good interaction regularly within the team (ie you're actually working together towards a goal), just hurry up and tell everyone what you need, and get out. Fight the sludge.
Just a giant circle. This shits the new cash register.
