slowly divert my work to different people in the company
So you’ve been promoted to a management position.
You can make fun of managers not doing work. You know what’s worse than someone at manager/director level that doesn’t do any work? One that insists on doing so! Trust me, first hand experience.
The absolute worst are the micro-managers. They don’t want to do work, but they also don’t want to delegate.
Instead they opt for that limbo between, where the only “work” they do is redundant at best, and every employee under them feels like a vole being tracked by a hungry hawk.
I worked for basically Michael Scott at some point in my life. Everyone knew that he had the easiest job on the planet, and he still didn’t do it, and we were all glad he didn’t. He could talk to a room full of people for hours and explain his position in the company for so long that you forgot what you even asked.
If you think the connection to Michael Scott ends there, you’d be wrong. You would always know when he had a new girlfriend, because he would talk about her all the time. One time he connected his laptop to the projector and the first thing that opened was a picture of his girlfriend. He looked at it, said: OH. Made sure everyone saw her and then pretended to hurry to start his speech.
One day he came to work, sat in my car (i was on my way to a jobsite and had no idea why he was there.) i didn’t want to talk, so i just took off. After some awkward silence, he said: i’m not even supposed to work today. I nodded, i had no idea. He asked if i knew why he’s here. I said nope. He said he was supposed to get married today but his girlfriend fucked two dudes in the jacuzzi yesterday.
There are countless stories like that and all i could think about was: this guy makes 60k a year by working two days a week. And i don’t mean because he was slacking off the rest, he was only employed 20%
Anon playing a dangerous game with management.
It’s all well and good until they find you, figure out what you’ve been doing (or rather not doing), then fire you and attempt to sue you for damages.
CYA. Make at least some attempts to be noticed. If they do notice you, at least you got a little bit of easily excusable free time - if they don’t, now you get the easy life AND a paper trail so they can’t say “why didn’t you try to tell us”.
I don’t know if they have much of a case to sue you, if you fall through the cracks on their own negligence. Fire you, yes. Sue, I am doubtful most larger businesses would even try. They’d rather solve the problem and sweep it under the carpet in my experience. Not USA experience of course, but still the attitude would be similar I expect.
I would worry a bit about whether they’re allowed to give negative references though. Because if so, it might not be so easy to get another job after.
Best move would be to line up another job to start like a month before the review, and never reach the review stage. Even if discovered, most people that would “know” wouldn’t really be driven to report anything if they’re leaving anyway. The “not my problem, and this will make it my problem” attitude in big companies is real.
I think in Spain there was a legal case, but that person was paid for decades without any work. And it was also public funds, as the employer was some municipality iirk
I looked at that. Actually I would argue that was even more negligence by the management there. I mean they couldn’t even say how long he’d not been working for.
But in reality he was paid for at least 6 years of work (and they suspected more) and only fined for 1 year of pay. So, he’s still a winner I think. And yes, public funds likely did help in bringing that case forward.
Most larger private businesses tend to avoid going to a court for such things unless they need to in my experience.
I mean it’s kinda embarrassing for the company to pay people to do nothing. It makes them seem a bit incompetent. I worked in a military branch where the three biggest fish of the branch got fired (maybe sued) because they hardly did anything. They would go to work, and then go on hunting trips together or shit like that. They did that for years, but they didn’t really know how long. So now people obviously began to wonder what else they are doing with their money, and why no one realised that there were 3 people making an absurd amount of money for a job that is already super chill and overpaid, that didn’t even do the work of one competent employee. I remember they had trouble finding replacements, so no one did their job until i left like a year or two later.
I heard many similar stories like that from friends and it’s always a bit shocking to me. I’m no go getter or anything, i run my own business, but even then, i don’t want to work more than i really have to. But i just really can’t imagine what that must be like.
I had a friend who worked as a static engineer. He then worked for a company that made bearings for big machines, which wasn’t his line of work but he liked it. The company got bought by another company who did something different and he just fell through the cracks. At first he was super anxious and just pretended to draw on his drawing board and had excel open on his computer. But no one cared, a lot of people switched jobs and suddenly he didn’t really know anyone anymore and after a few month he told me that he doesn’t really know what his job is.
I’ve had jobs that amounted to sitting around waiting for work and hated it. I’m the first to tell people that I work just hard enough to not be bored and to keep everything under control
disclaimer: I’m not a bootlicker, all’s fair game for how you earn your keep
but there’s no way a competent person finds themselves not knowing what their job role is
that being said: a dubs a dub I guess ?
Have you ever worked in corporate?
‘Systemic dysfunction? Sounds like a personal failing.’
From what i gathered, the whole company was a huge mess. It was basically a very small company buying A big company that was going under. It was kind of the inverse of how these things would usually go. So the new company moved their things into the old factory so to say. With the merger, new people working with old people and new working spaces and what not. He shared his little office with another guy who quit in the merger because he was 62 and wasn’t gonna have it. People kinda just started working.
Fuck this guy. Living out my dream ;'(
If we ignore the actual stress of a manager suddenly finding out and asking you to report what you have been doing. Probably still possible to bullshit long enough in a big company to recover a normal situation or find another job.
“I’ve been awaiting my next job”
Probably get fire but oh well, easy run until that point.
Nah, when you jam up the machine in an unexpected way, more likely than not they’re going to keep it quiet. A manager isn’t going to want to go to their boss with a problem no one noticed… It’s going to do nothing to benefit them and it’ll make their life harder
All you have to do is play dumb. Insubordination is one thing, waiting for orders is just having a job with little autonomy. If you maintain you were just a good little cog waiting to be reconnected to the machine, they’re better off sweeping it under the rug.
They might get upset instead, but what are they going to do? Sue you for not being more proactive? They’d probably lose more in legal fees than they could get back from most people
I’ve told this story a few times now, but I never get sick of it.
Back in 2011 I left a startup that got acquired. On my last day we had a Christmas Party with our parent company, and we got to speaking to one guy that was on his own. After a few drinks, he blurted out that he had worked there for maybe 12 years, but at least 5-6 of those he was “unassigned”. When we asked what that meant, he said that his manager left and he was never assigned to a new team. He badged in every day, and after doing maybe 6 months of busy work and asking “wtf am I doing” to no answer from his department or HR he just came in to do his own stuff or play Unreal Tournament. He had yearly reviews with the head of department, and these were just high-level goal meetings where they reviewed the department, asked what he wanted, and left at that. Each year he was getting between a 2-5% pay rise, and outside of badging in he was only ever judged on his department output.
I always wonder what happened to that guy. The company is quite large and is still going strong, so he’s probably still there. I won’t name them, but another thing I loved about them was that they didn’t really know where to put Software Engineers, so they just assigned them to Marketing and gave each engineer a marketing budget to personally use - around £10k each. The best part? Everyone in marketing knew it was bullshit, but they pushed everyone to spend it because otherwise their budget would go down. Some highlights were a trip to Toronto to buy some books, a full team trip to Amsterdam to go to a React conference and live in basically 5-star accommodation, and renting a hotel lobby to quickly burn some money on interviewing interns. I think they actually have a tech department now, but I know many people I worked with that stayed for close to a decade because the WLB and perks were just too good to ignore.
This is why downsizing isn’t always bad
Well… Let there be some fun in this world.
Apart from this … middle management is a real bloat nower days. Layers after layers of managers without contact to the actual product. (Now seen in Microsoft, Google and Enshittification)
Oh god, i only once worked in a company large enough where it felt like there were more middle managers than actual workers. The middle manger that was assigned to my team suddenly got sick. Like cancer sick and he basically stopped working within a week. They panicked, because there was no one to replace her. Some guy that i have never seen before told us that we just have to hang in there for 2 weeks or so until they found a replacement. They never found a replacement and i think they just forgot, because nothing has changed about our job, we did the same amount of work and everything. Legitimately the only difference was that they had one less paycheck to pay.
Imagine being so poorly managed that you downsize to cut back on unnecessary spending but literally lose track of an employee. Let’s keep the expense of an employee with none of the revenue generation!
Sometimes you just have to many people
I can honestly see that person surviving downsizing rounds.
No manager = nobody to name them on their “pick 10 employees to get rid of” lists.
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I’ve seen this happen with coworkers of mine. Folks who never did any work. And slipped under the radar for many years. at least two (and one other to a lesser extent) come to mind.
I have a coworker like that in a shared office. Guy fucking watches movies on speaker with the boss next door.
Who’s the real boss in this situation
Good point.
The one paying for it, of course.
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Happens when you’re not proud of what you’re contributing to. Probably most workers, tbh.
I was in a position like this once. The first two or three months were great. TBH, I mostly played video games and cleaned the house. It felt like free money. By the six month mark, I quit to go to something else. It’s surprising how mentally draining it is to just do nothing.
I think I took two things away from that experience: One, I think people generally have an innate need to produce something. We don’t want to just sit around and entertain ourselves, we want to contribute. Two, I think the 40 hour work week isn’t quite the right balance. Maybe 30 would be better.
Gah, a 4-day work week would be wonderful. I might actually work on my side projects.
Eh, I have kids, so I already have enough mental drain w/o my full-time job, so I think I’d end up catching up on things I’ve been putting off, like exercise, repairs around the house, etc.
In fact, I lost my job at the start of COVID and didn’t start looking for a few months because nobody was hiring. I got so much stuff done around the house, and I was able to essentially home-school my kids at the end of one school year and the beginning of the next. I really enjoyed that, and I would totally homeschool my kids if I didn’t need to work every day to pay the bills.
So yeah, I’d absolutely appreciate a 30-ish hour work week, especially if I got one whole day off instead of it being spread across 5-days.
In your case your productivity is spend around your house and kids and not on jobs, in OOP’s case they spend their time consume. I know i can take the latter but only for a day or two, but i’ll definitely shift to the former soon after.
Even if I didn’t have kids, I’d have plenty of things to do with my SO: hiking, traveling, cooking, etc. “Productivity” has a lot of forms, and many of them aren’t marketable at all, so I really don’t think I’d need to look for a job if I didn’t need the pay.
If you’re single and/or your friends/SO all still work, then yeah, I imagine you’d get pretty bored after a month or so. But if you already have a lot of fulfilling things you’d like to do but don’t have time for, I think not working could work out pretty well.
My brother didn’t get married until about 40yo and had a fantastic job (made it to VP level as an actuary), so he made way more than he could spend. He ended up being able to retire around the time he got married, and he inherited 3 kids (she’s a widow). He’s been retired for several years now and still finds plenty of things to keep himself occupied. He could totally work if he wanted, there’s just other things taking his time.
Everyone is different. For some people, work is the most fulfilling thing, which is why we’ll see many very wealthy people working into their 70s (or 90s for Warren Buffett). For others, relationships are more important, so they quit as soon as they have enough. And for others, various hobbies fill that spot. So it really depends on what gives your life meaning.
For me, it’s my SO and kids, followed by FOSS. So if I didn’t have to work, I’d spend more time on those, not look for another job.
One, I think
people generallyI have an innate need to produce something.WeI don’t want to just sit around and entertainourselvesmyself,weI want to contribute. Two, I think the 40 hour work week isn’t quite the right balance for me. Maybe 30 would be better for me.It’s good to learn from experiences, but it’s not good to assume that your experience is everyone’s experience.
Yeah same here.
I’m in a similar situation at the moment where my team is pretty unorganized, most employees are from an external company, and noone bothers to explain shit to me, even after I asked several times already. Plus, because of unenforced rules, it’s basically 100% home office and noone is ever present, even if I go in the office. I COULD just do nothing and pretend like I’m working all of the time, noone ever contacts me anyway. But that would genuinely make me wanna die.
I’m already feeling super useless most of the time and try to chew through old legacy code to at least gain an understanding of the project. It’s somewhat working, but it’s tough to keep up my motivation. Overall I kinda oscillate between feeling useless and frustrated because I’m just not as productive as I would want to be as an employee.
Anyway, I’m already sending out CVs to other job offers. This is not the ideal life for me and I don’t plan on keeping it going for longer than necessary.
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yeah I am the same as you. I can’t respect anyone who slacks that hard
Long ago I worked at Wal-mart’s tire center while going to college and to get as many hours as I could they let me work with the overnight people after we closed at 7. In theory. The problem was the overnight managers never got told about this so I would just hang out doing nothing for 3 hours every night and getting paid. This went on for 3 months until I got a better job and no one ever questioned me about it.
Don’t you still feel bad about defrauding Walmart for 180 hours worth of pay?
Cause I don’t.I do not.
What would you say, you do here?
If I did this I would immediately try to get a second job with the extra time and save like crazy.
2022
So, how did it go?
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Or find a new job so you can save the entire salary, and then send in your 2-weeks just before yearly reviews. That way you can get ahead so you have less stress when you inevitably get cut off.
Nah don’t send in your two weeks, have them fire you and then claim unemployment, or get a severance.
Getting terminated would suck, but not if you already have a job and don’t need the reference.
Nah, if they notice you’ve been scamming them for months and end up firing you, they’ll fight the unemployment and could sue you. If you quit before they notice, they may never end up looking into it and you’ll get away with it scot free.
Don’t worry Anon, I’m sure it’ll work out.
wastes his time watching movies all day.
Really?? Smh
World doesn’t have to be just hustle and grind. The man can enjoy himself however he likes, especially if he’s getting paid too.
Depending on the state you’re in you can get sued for all that money back, best to CYA
So this answers the question what universal basic income would lead to — sitting at home and watching movies
Even a cursory search online provides evidence that that isn’t the case: https://www.givedirectly.org/2023-ubi-results/#design
If he could read, you would have made him very upset.
Because nobody ever accepts more work or responsibility for higher pay to afford more or better things. Most people work just enough to pay for rent and groceries and are perfectly happy with that.
Difference between UBI and this is that you get paid the minimum for living, which would mean him being able to live like this would only be possible for a short amount of time or with really restricted funds
Love that you’re getting down voted but we had something approaching universal basic income in my country trough wellfare plans that were not exclusive with each other and had super lax requirements (since corrupt officials would take a cut of them) and it resulted in a very marked increase in poverty and a very marked cultural decline in work ethic on the lower classes
Why work or study when you can just stay at home and get paid enough to survive if you vote for the “right” candidate. People love to dream about theorized ideals but reality is often more complicated
