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It's getting dark...
Sep. 17th, 2010 09:18 pmI had to turn on the headlights this morning as I went down the driveway, en route to the amateur radio breakfast. As we head for another equinox and solstice, things are only going to get darker in the morning as we go along.
The morning brought no new work, so I busied myself with some long-term jobs that've been hanging around, and then joined Galina in a drive to Durango and back. The next-to-last batch of The Big Edit™ arrived in the middle of the day, and I plan to get a good chunk of it done this weekend (say, at least half).
I unearthed an interesting book, titled Getting Things Done, not by David Allen, but by one Edwin C. Bliss, written at about the time the Altair-I was a gleam in someone's eye. It's full of much pre-digital wisdom, and over the course of the years, I've concluded that the reason such ideas haven't really caught on is because they are primarily of aid to people who are getting things done, and are thus never going to be promoted, as opposed to higher-ups, who must avoid doing anything to rock the boat and risk highlighting their general uselessness.
The easiest example to pick is the fallacy of overtime productivity.
A "getting things done" type of person understands that overtime is an occasional necessary evil, and is capable of working extra hours or on off days, but generally, this person understands that goals should be completed in a manner that leaves time for family, recreation, and time to recharge.
A "pointy-headed boss" (to borrow a concept from Dilbert) is more interested in appearances and thus measures value to the employer by sheer exhibited dedication, i.e., the number of hours spent working. Despite frequent lip service, such managers don't care for work effectiveness all that much; heck, most of them wouldn't recognize the animal if it walked up to them in broad daylight and bit them on the leg.
During my interview at Borland, way back when, one of my prospective managers asked: "How do you feel about working overtime?" I replied that I could work as much time as was necessary to get the job done, but if getting the job done required heroic overtime levels all the time, then - frankly - there was something wrong with my manager. (The answer must've worked: I got the job.)
But the problem with most corporate environments is exactly what happened at Borland. When I joined the company, object-oriented programming was the big deal and Philippe Kahn was in perpetual motion with a talk that described how companies that started out in "barbarian" mode eventually ossified into a hierarchy of "bureaucrats" that could no longer react to dynamic challenges, which exactly the path that, in my opinion, Borland followed in the two years I was with the company.
So now I feel like Mark Twain's dog, the one that has been led out into the middle of nowhere by a coyote (whereas I've been led here by a freewheeling thought). Unlike Twain's dog, who is lost and may die of thirst and hunger, I shall just quietly back off, hit 'Post entry', and think some more about this.
Cheers...
The morning brought no new work, so I busied myself with some long-term jobs that've been hanging around, and then joined Galina in a drive to Durango and back. The next-to-last batch of The Big Edit™ arrived in the middle of the day, and I plan to get a good chunk of it done this weekend (say, at least half).
I unearthed an interesting book, titled Getting Things Done, not by David Allen, but by one Edwin C. Bliss, written at about the time the Altair-I was a gleam in someone's eye. It's full of much pre-digital wisdom, and over the course of the years, I've concluded that the reason such ideas haven't really caught on is because they are primarily of aid to people who are getting things done, and are thus never going to be promoted, as opposed to higher-ups, who must avoid doing anything to rock the boat and risk highlighting their general uselessness.
The easiest example to pick is the fallacy of overtime productivity.
A "getting things done" type of person understands that overtime is an occasional necessary evil, and is capable of working extra hours or on off days, but generally, this person understands that goals should be completed in a manner that leaves time for family, recreation, and time to recharge.
A "pointy-headed boss" (to borrow a concept from Dilbert) is more interested in appearances and thus measures value to the employer by sheer exhibited dedication, i.e., the number of hours spent working. Despite frequent lip service, such managers don't care for work effectiveness all that much; heck, most of them wouldn't recognize the animal if it walked up to them in broad daylight and bit them on the leg.
During my interview at Borland, way back when, one of my prospective managers asked: "How do you feel about working overtime?" I replied that I could work as much time as was necessary to get the job done, but if getting the job done required heroic overtime levels all the time, then - frankly - there was something wrong with my manager. (The answer must've worked: I got the job.)
But the problem with most corporate environments is exactly what happened at Borland. When I joined the company, object-oriented programming was the big deal and Philippe Kahn was in perpetual motion with a talk that described how companies that started out in "barbarian" mode eventually ossified into a hierarchy of "bureaucrats" that could no longer react to dynamic challenges, which exactly the path that, in my opinion, Borland followed in the two years I was with the company.
So now I feel like Mark Twain's dog, the one that has been led out into the middle of nowhere by a coyote (whereas I've been led here by a freewheeling thought). Unlike Twain's dog, who is lost and may die of thirst and hunger, I shall just quietly back off, hit 'Post entry', and think some more about this.
Cheers...
