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Doing Everyone Else's Job

215 points · 115 comments · luu

  1. maerF0x0 · · focus · HN ↗
    > and most managers fail to punish at least some of these slow learners of theirs

    False, they punish by not crediting that work as work.

    Glue work, keeping things tidy, dealing with that annoyance that everyone else has been able to get away with suffering through (and ignoring), all of this will be worth approximately 0 at performance review time because your time is a zerosum game that is traded off with highly visible, political, and otherwise rewardable work.

    It's been my experience that in larger companies you generally have to play in the framework.(I'd roughly draw the line at 1000+ employees), at quite small companies (or as a self employed / entrepreneur, roughly <200 employees) you should follow the path of highest EROI on your efforts regardless of who's job it is. In the gap you have to read the culture and management.

    1. 3eb7988a1663 · · focus · HN ↗
      I can think of at least two people in my career who were, ahem, load bearing for the company. They did all of the BS, non-sexy work required to keep the place running. Never wasted time on vanity projects, just showed up day after day doing the actual necessary things.

      They were criminally under appreciated by management. Their career trajectory significantly worse than those who engaged in the highly visible projects.

      1. two_handfuls · · focus · HN ↗
        Was the company over 1000 employees?
        1. airstrike · · focus · HN ↗
          In my case and experience, yes.
        2. 3eb7988a1663 · · focus · HN ↗
          Significantly larger, yes.
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