> 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.
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.
It's because being rewarded is not the primary reason they do anything. It's a component and it's nice, but it's not the definition if life and existence.
I think you've completely misunderstood my point. It's not that they shouldn't keep doing what they do, its that there are places that will appreciate what they do.
I accept that public sector, charitable sector etc, make this calculation a bit different. But in the private sector it just seems silly to give yourself to a job that doesn't appreciate what you give it.
maerF0x0 · · focus · HN ↗
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.
3eb7988a1663 · · focus · HN ↗
They were criminally under appreciated by management. Their career trajectory significantly worse than those who engaged in the highly visible projects.
dust-jacket · · focus · HN ↗
But I've also never worked at a large company.
Brian_K_White · · focus · HN ↗
dust-jacket · · focus · HN ↗
I accept that public sector, charitable sector etc, make this calculation a bit different. But in the private sector it just seems silly to give yourself to a job that doesn't appreciate what you give it.