I'll do you one better. My friends from a team I used to be in had a guy who simply didn't know how to code. My friend would at times act as a ghostwriter(for free) so that the poor bastard wouldn't get fired.
Management often spends so little time with you that the difference between them perceiving lots of work and little work comes down to what you say in your daily standup.
To me it’s about 4 hours a day. There’s no deceit in this. What I tell them I’m working on is what I’m working on, what I’ve declared as ‘finished’ is factually ‘finished’.
To the company, I’m still contributing the things I agreed to, responsive to the people who come to me for help (as a senior) and on track with the projects assigned to me.
When the wall comes and I just cannot will myself to stare at the same problem anymore, that’s it for the day. Sometimes that takes longer than others, sometimes it’s 5 hours instead of four. Sometimes it’s a whole 8 hour day.
So..matter of perspective, I guess. The agency and autonomy are nice, though. Some people want a shorter work day given. I’ve just decided to take it.
> To me it’s about 4 hours a day. There’s no deceit in this. What I tell them I’m working on is what I’m working on, what I’ve declared as ‘finished’ is factually ‘finished’.
I've come to realize this isn't always a mistake on management's part. I work at a company where developers use the full day to get tasks done because there is so much on our road map. There is absolutely no slack, when something new comes up, something else needs to drop.
We are hiring, but now I spend some of my time training them. I've seen friends work for companies that keep some % of their experienced developers time idle so those devs tackle issues that might pop up.
Eventually the guy was promoted.
The Dilbert principle is real.