When we worked in the office, I found that if I had finished my assigned work and it was towards the end of the day – I was reluctant to start something new, but I wouldn’t have the guts to go home (I thought my manager or colleagues would question why I was walking out 30-60 minutes earlier than you should). So instead, I’d stay at my desk and talk to a colleague or browse some programming websites, casually look through recent bug reports, or bug fixes. But either way, I wouldn’t be working.
The thing is, I would rarely walk away from my desk during the day. Yet there were other people that would go for a break for 10-20 minutes on a regular basis. Then there was Derek that took so many breaks – he would only work for about 4 hours instead of his contracted 7.5 hours per day! I explained this in my previous blog on Work Hours.
When I thought about it, if it was acceptable for Derek to work like that, there shouldn’t be anything stopping me walking off after 4 productive hours at my desk.
When we moved to permanently working from home, I had my usual office mindset where I would rarely leave my desk and wouldn’t shut my laptop off until it got to 5pm. Then a few months in, I started taking a few more breaks, but still wouldn’t leave until 5pm. Sometimes if my colleagues asked for help around 5pm, I’d happily help them out for 30 minutes or so.
If you think about it, I was probably working more at home. There’s no one distracting you by walking past your desk, no temptation to look at what other people are doing, no office banter to distract you, no one coming to your desk unannounced.
A few weeks ago, it got to 4pm, and I started wasting time – having a nosey at bug reports and recent code changes. Then I thought “what am I doing? Why am I wasting time until it gets to 5pm. No one is going to see me leave”. So I walked over to my PC and started playing games. I left my laptop on, and if people messaged me, I would rush over and respond. Sometimes they wanted help and I would call them. Other times they were sending me unimportant stuff, so back to games.
Over the last month or so, we have cut down the amount of bug fixes we are putting in the releases. I have quite a few fixes waiting to be checked in, but I’m not allowed to commit it because of the restricted releases. So I’m on target for the work I’ve been assigned. I’ve sent a message to my manager, requesting more work. While waiting for a reply – I go play some games. He could take up to an hour to respond, because he could be in a meeting. No point wasting time and waiting around.
I have a high standard of ethics, or like to think so. I don’t see a problem with this new way of working. I’m getting the assigned work done, and I’m having fun. It’s not like I am actually slacking off. Also, I did say I always have my laptop on during work hours and will promptly respond. There’s times where there will be something important and I’ll work past my contracted hours, so it kind of cancels out anyway. I don’t complain if I work 2 extra hours some days to investigate/fix some important issue, because I know I’ve taken the time up front.
Additionally, sometimes you have those meetings where you don’t really need to participate so you end up casually listening. So sometimes I have whipped out the 3DS or Kindle and played some casual games whilst listening to the meeting. Multitasking.
Some days I’ve kept a book at my desk. When there’s something that blocks me for 5 mins or more, like I have to rebuild our software, or I need to wait for someone to finish their meeting – then I can read.
Managers are always going on about how important it is to have a good work-life balance, and how we need to be aware of our mental health. You may as well take advantage of the new way of working. It has its disadvantages but it also has advantages like this.
Stranger Coding Tings 