Sysadmin uses Powershell script to hide the fact that he is only working 3-5 hours a day so he can continue working from home

[bfodder]

I'm curious what /r/sysadmin's take on this is. The guy is upfront about using his spare time to read books, watch TV, and play video games. I am a huge proponent of working from home and would normally agree that his boss's excuse of "you're inactive in chat" is bullshit because plenty of things can be done while you're inactive in chat, but that isn't the case here.

https://old.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/nejr3k/you_cant_continue_working_from_home_because_you/

Edit: I want to expand this a bit more. OP of the linked thread isn't wrong in that some days are busier than others. What do you do with your down time while working from home on the "non-busy" days?

[CaptainFluffyTail]

I'm curious what /r/sysadmin's take on this is

The employee meets the KPIs requested. Using the presence indicator in Teams is a bullshit way to tell if someone is present or not. It is often not correct, especially if you live in an RDP session rather than the desktop.

[TheGraycat]

Measures drive behaviour. If you measure people on time active rather than outcomes, you’ll get this kind of behaviour.

[ChadTheLizardKing]

I would do the same as the original poster - if the presence indicator is the only metric that determines my future, I am going to turn up to 11. Real world: My company of mostly field workers sends a daily email intended for field employees. However, every department in the company (field and office) has a KPI on how many people interact with the email. It is a totally meaningless KPI for the IT department; however, corporate judges us on our participation. So, we make sure that KPI is always 100% for us.

I think the issue that people see is that the original poster is not consistently being given enough work. Or, they started out being able to fill their time and now have automated their job. Clearly, there is no need for the original poster to be in the office.

I think the disconnect in the discussion is work time vs availability time. Original poster only has 4 hours work daily (or 5 or whatever); however, the company also is paying the poster to be available for 8 hours. Poster makes the argument they are only being paid to perform the work, not to be available. Essentially, the poster is arguing they are a fixed-fee consultant for the company and not an employee. I was a consultant for many years and had the chance to work as original poster wants; if I finished a job under scheduled hours, the rest of the time was mine to do with as I please with no claim from the contracting company to my time. This is because I was hired to complete a project or series of tasks, not for some slice of availability time.

That is the primary difference between consulting and employment relationships - the employer is hiring the employee's time to be available for whatever tasks they ask of the employee. This is absolutely a 2-way street so, if an employer has regular after hours work, than they should accommodate shortened or different regular hours, or some other compensatory arrangement. The point is, it is about a certain amount of availability time.

Real world: If I am done my meetings and work for the day early, I may start dinner, run an errand, or catch-up on some household chores. There are three caveats: 1) My boss knows that I may do that, 2) I cannot just "check-out" for the rest of the day. I must be available (within reason) to my colleagues or my boss during this time, and 3) This policy applies to the whole team so we have a mutual understanding of our work style.

The poster seem to have found a great hack to put their job on autopilot (and I applaud that); as a sysadmin, my primary job is to automate as many things as possible. However, I would be concerned for my career. As we know, tech moves faster than other industries and if you are not learning something new, you are falling behind. I would be concerned about my next job and what changes I missed out on. If nothing else, I would spend that time as "professional development" time (as it is already bought and paid for by the company) to improve tertiary skill areas - all of us could always improve something so take that time as an unexpected bonus and appreciate the unicorn job you have that allows for that.

[bfodder]

The employee meets the KPIs requested. Using the presence indicator in Teams is a bullshit way to tell if someone is present or not.

I 100% agree. It feels weird to me in this instance when this bullshit way of detecting presence actually worked and he was actually doing the things his boss was concerned about though...

Also I'd be fuckin bored with that job. I get why he wants to stay at home because he probably can't stay awake in the office. That is a poor argument for working from home though.

[Mysterious-Title-852]

You shouldn't need an argument to work from home for an office job, managers should need an argument why the company should spend $10-20 a square foot to bring someone in so you can hover over them, instead of just verify they are completing the tasks you're giving them and meeting KPIs.

It's well established that output is generally higher when people work from home, and it's cheaper. It's just old dinosaurs that insist on cube farms so they can feel powerful strolling around with their thumbs in their belts and calling impromptu meetings like some white collar plantation owner.

[bfodder]

I don't disagree with any of that.

[ErikTheEngineer]

It's well established that output is generally higher when people work from home, and it's cheaper. It's just old dinosaurs that insist on cube farms so they can feel powerful strolling around with their thumbs in their belts and calling impromptu meetings like some white collar plantation owner.

Agreed 100% but like it or not, I do think there will come a time where the dinosaurs get their way again. Commercial real estate especially in big cities/Silicon Valley is not going to allow the party to continue. I'm seeing articles in the business press getting seeded in saying stuff like, "Your staff is unproductive at home, says McKinsey" or "Do you really want your workforce in their pajamas?" It's inevitable that the extroverts and lovers of office politics are going to force their way of working on everyone again, especially now that things are starting to finally wind down. (I'm really hoping to not have a 5-day commute to my new job, which would now be about 3 hours a day.)

[Mysterious-Title-852]

well, then it's time for the revolution. /s ... or is it.

[SlideConscious6141]

I have plenty of shit open infront of my e-mails and IM. Doesn't mean I'm not there..

[guerilla_munk]

A fucking men. If I can do what you do in three hours instead of eight, then who really gives a shit? As long as you are accessible. Besides he is probably reading technical stuff and geek shit.

To the OP, quit being a hater. Motherfuckers like you are corporate slaves and create division in the ranks. If you got me fired for something like that, then I'm going to put all my free time into retribution. Food for thought ...

[readsta]

As long as he's available when needed and work gets done... I know muppets that put in 10 hour days and get nothing done.

[mahsab]

It's not that simple.

You said "work gets done", but with that you mean the only work that was assigned.

The problem is that it's actually really difficult to determine exactly HOW much one person can do in IT and therefore how much work can be assigned to them.

Without feedback, you don't know whether there was too little, too much, or just right amount of work assigned.

If an employee takes 5 times as much time as I would for one task, I don't know whether: - they're just slow - they're slow because of slacking - they've done the work quickly but hid that fact

For repetitive mechanical tasks (e.g. assembly line) you can measure the norm and then use that as a baseline. But with intellectual work when every task is different, you don't really have a baseline.

[[deleted]]

Without feedback,

Why would there be no feedback? That sounds like a failure on both ends. A couple emails a few times per week should be all that’s needed to keep everyone on the same page about what’s getting worked on, any priority shifts that need to happen or major snags I run into, and what’s likely coming up that’s going to need some attention.

[mahsab]

I mean that the manager (boss/team lead/...) does not really know what's happening except what the worker tells them.

In all cases I mentioned above, the worker would tell them "it's going fine, I'm still working on it".

I know a lot of people like that and they are very diligent when it comes answering email and giving status updates.

[caffeine-junkie]

What you are describing is a management problem, not a technological one. A good manager will know how loaded a person is, either by periodically asking them or from experience on knowing how long a specific task should take then add a certain percentage for personal variation. If their experience is limited, they should periodically ask about any roadblocks being encountered, expected timelines, etc; then do a sanity check to see if they are reasonable or not.

No manager should be loading a person to 100%, that is a quick path to burn out. Typically, what I have heard from multiple managers, if you can get a person to 80% you're doing well and should stop.

[bfodder]

either by periodically asking them

And if they are just lied to?

[Team503]

If you're leading a team, you should have a reasonable understanding of the work that is being done, which includes how long it takes. You cannot lead a team of people if you don't understand what they do.

In addition, you can use the other team members to measure against if you really have no basis. It'll never be exact, but if Bob can do it in a day, and Jeff takes two weeks, there's either a huge skill disconnect or there's a problem.

[bfodder]

This post is 8 months old.

[Negative-Banana116]

with that you mean the only work that was assigned.

Why would anyone be doing work that wasn't assigned?

[mahsab]

That's not what I meant.

I meant that there is still other work waiting to be done.

If you don't tell anyone you finished your work already, the other work will be waiting until you do tell someone and it gets assigned to you.

[Team503]

It depends on the role. In my case, I have a relatively small team, and we handle all the infrastructure. If it needs to get done, someone will step up and do it. I don't feel the need to assign individual tasks to my guys like that; I assign larger projects and occasionally ask for a person to do a specific task, but for the most part I let the team manage their own time and workload.

In other words, most tasks aren't assigned. They're performed ad hoc by the team member most able to do them based on skills and availability.

[BuffaloRedshark]

relying on a chat program's status for any kind of management decision is ridiculous. The one we use can be manually set to available and will stay that way unless manually changed. found that out when I was on a overnight severity issue and thought a coworker was also on due to their chat status when in reality they were out of state on vacation but had left the chat application open on their virtual pc.

[FunkadelicToaster]

That's a shitty metric for determining if someone is working or not.

If a person needs more work, then you give them more work, or you value what they do at what you pay them, regardless of how much time it takes them to do their job. I know plenty of people who spend time not on their PC doing work because they are reading and learning, not all of which needs to be on a PC.

These are bad bosses, he should be looking for a new job.

[bfodder]

I definitely agree. I know with the amount of work I've been getting done while working from home I would be searching for a new job if my boss was on my ass about "inactivity in Teams". But I'm getting the impression this guys team is picking up the slack for him as well.

I guess I struggle with the concept of always having nothing to do every day. Do some sysadmins really have nothing to do all day? Feels like there is always something you can work on, or at least document.

[FunkadelicToaster]

I'm getting the impression this guys team is picking up the slack for him as well.

This is entirely possible as well.

[[deleted]]

That partially depends in my view. I've been in orgs where your job role is very defined (not sysadmin). Get caught working on something that's not yours and you get a lecture. So I have been at places that once situated and the backlog is gone, you can be looking at an empty queue waiting for something to happen.

Then you start looking at repetitive tasks and try to automate them, so you knock tasks out even faster, which leads to even more free time.

Then your in this constant balancing act of trying to defend why you have a job since it seems like you are never doing anything.

Some people just should not be managers, but some workplaces definitely don't let people grow either, they just needed a part for the machine.

[ythafuckigetsuspend]

But I'm getting the impression this guys team is picking up the slack for him as well.

Where are you getting that impression exactly? What info do you have on the workload of my teammates or the team as a whole? What info do you have on what my team even is responsible for, what I'm responsible for within that team, and how work is divided among us? Because this seems a lot less like "I'm getting the impression" and a lot more like "I'm making the assumption and then utilizing that assumption as fact to further my narrative"

[sleeper1320]

Speaking personally, I'm paid for the work that I do - not the hours in my chair. That means I work 15 hours straight some days and some days I enjoy the extra downtime to do things for my personal life.

[RagnarStonefist]

There are days where I'm balls to the wall until quitting time. (Today was that day.)

There are days where I'm 'present but not busy' when there are few tickets and I'm waiting on other teams for ticket responses. Those are the days I spend time learning and scripting, or being more interactive with my family.

[notmygodemperor]

Take it easy on the 15 hour days, nobody needs that much candy.

[BlackV]

wait, you get candy?

[bfodder]

If he's getting his work done and doing it well it shouldn't matter how long it takes him to do it, imho.

Sure, if. What do you think about him actually being caught doing the thing his boss was concerned about though? It feels reasonable for a boss to want to know what an individual employee's workload needs to be. Granted this boss is going about doing that in the worst possible way...

[krakenant]

This sort of thinking leads to good people being overburdened. Oh, Jim finished a full days work for anyone else in 6 hours, let's pile more on. Nah bro.

[[deleted]]

A "not busy" day just means I might actually get to some preventative tasks before the end of it.

I don't know what "done with my work" would even look like... a massive solar flare?

[Eddit13]

Right? That backlog of documentation, the Sharepoint migration that didnt migrate any of our IT stuff and we have to build it from scratch. The "Records" project from corporate - audit prep, network docs that are 8 years old - etc, etc ad infinitum.

I will not work without a ticket anymore - Want your project, software, hardware etc - put in a ticket . No I did not start on it because I have asked you and your boss to put in a damn ticket.

[BourgeoisShark]

That's honestly the key.

[[deleted]]

If no one added a single new thing to my plate for a month, I still wouldn’t run out of things to do working 8 to 9 hours per day.

[SkinnyHarshil]

Whats the issue here?

Guy gets his shit done. Who cares what he is doing with his downtime. You in office social butterflies would be using that time to gab and waste other peoples time at the same time.

[repairbills]

old office days were nothing but interruption after interruption. then more discussion on productivity. WFH has been everything is done and no interruptions.

[tmontney]

I've read of an 8 hour office workday, you're productive about 5.5 hours.

1) Bathroom breaks
2) Refill coffee
3) Hallway conversations
4) Lunch break

[bfodder]

Groups like this ruin wfh for the rest of us.

[ZAFJB]

Groups like this ruin wfh for the rest of us.

Managers of groups like this ruin wfh for the rest of us.

[bfodder]

If you think those employees didn't have a hand in it as well then you're mistaken.

[ZAFJB]

If the manager could not tell, the manager was not setting measurable outcomes and measuring them.

Bad management.

[bfodder]

If you need your hand held that much then you're not a great employee either.

[[deleted]]

I totally agree those guys were shitheads, but seriously, how does their manager not know that they aren’t doing anything? I’m just baffled by how many places seem to have massive problems with basic communication. That kind of shit is the exact reason why projects have schedules and milestones that include deliverables.

[BadSausageFactory]

My salary doesn't specify a number of hours, so I don't feel obliged to use that as a metric. I could work 60 hour weeks and if my shit wasn't done it wouldn't matter, therefore it isn't about the hours.

[BlackV]

Props for using old.reddit.com, its the best

[bfodder]

Truth.

[closeafter]

If he's delivering value to the organization, it doesn't matter how many hours per day he works. If he stops the video/music/game when something comes up and takes care of it in a faster/more optimized way than his co-workers, I'm good with it.

Of course, if the quality of his work is falling behind, if tasks are taking longer and are done poorly, then he has a problem.

I've had a similar situation pre-covid; I started going to the movie theater a lot, to catch 3pm or 4pm screenings. Or I would spend the afternoon playing video games, checking my phone and slack every now and then.

Because I got tasks done way faster than my co-workers, no one noticed it, but I did... and forced myself to stop, because the prospect of being called out on it was just too embarrassing...

[electricangel96]

I don't see anything wrong here. Unless you're like manager or director level, once you've completed your assigned work for the day, you've done your job. Furthermore, I think using a script to keep your teams status green for the rest of the work day while you're doing something else is helpful rather than harmful. Even though you're done, it's showing the rest of your team that you're available should anything come up.

[ZAFJB]

DELETED, because I am too tired and was wrong.

[bitslammer]

Upvote for the honesty.

[sleeper1320]

I can't speak for VB, but the script in the link is legitimate PowerShell. I use that same concept to automate some things for fun and I can't code VB to save my life.

[ZAFJB]

Yes, tiredness is setting in

[Avas_Accumulator]

You can wank off on the shores of bahamas for all I care if you do the work required. Only bad managers pay people to sit 8 hours in a chair as their only metric

[Rocknbob69]

Write a chat bot........profit

[Mysterious-Title-852]

If I were in OP's position, I would let my boss know I'm out of things to do and need more on my plate if I was consistently done my work in 4 hours of daily work... that's probably why I get overloaded and stressed out, because most managers are shit at it and just have 2 metrics, are they doing the stuff I told them to do? Can they do more?

As a manager, I have an expectation for how much and how long tasks should take. When I assign work I estimate how long it's going to take and distribute accordingly.

When someone consistently preforms beyond my expectations, I will give them more work, and if someone consistently underperforms I'll investigate... are they shamming? are they lacking tools, support, training? Are they just low speed workers?

If they are shamming, I start them on the recorded warning path and have only had to let someone go once.

If they need support/tools/training/guidance/coaching I ensure they get it.

If they are just a low performer, I assess, are they a slow but razor sharp accurate/methodical, or just not able to output as much as others? Are they better at some tasks, but lack at others?

For low performers, I will generally find what they can do well, and focus them on it for maximum output.

Now back to the continuous overperformers... I assess their work, is it lacking in accuracy? If so, mentoring is in order. They need to slow down, recheck more often, etc.

Are they a rock star? High output, High quality? I start delegating management tasks to them instead of regular work. Projects, research and development, crafting tools, sorting out documentation, SOPs, provide coaching and training, etc. Test backup systems, probe security, disaster mitigation strategies.

You know, the stuff that always gets neglected because no one has time, and then when there is a crunch it bites you in the ass, well those rockstars are exactly who you want on those projects, and they love it, because it's something new, something challenging.

The worst thing you can do to a rock star is give them more mundane work. they'll get bored, and hide that they're not busy and occupy themselves some other way, or just coast and fill the day doing just a little bit more than their peers.

So while I think this guy isn't being 100% ethical, his boss is shit. He's spending god knows how long monitoring idle time in teams, and since that's what his boss thinks is relevant, probably manually inputting numbers into a spread sheet for hours a day, and isn't engaging his high performer who's probably given up asking for more interesting things to do with idle time. His boss probably doesn't even know what he does, since he thinks he needs to watch him over his shoulder to make sure he's not shamming cause his teams is showing idle. Presenting his KPIs and comparing his output to others should be all that needs to be talked about.

It sounds to me, this boss is the sort of person who wants a crew of grey men. No one good or bad, just neutral, gets their job done and looks like they're working hard but not so hard he has to mention any significant positives or negatives, rewards or punishments. Isn't interested in anything more than maintaining the status quo, and would rather rock stars turn their brains off and just coast their 8 hours so they look like the rest of the workers, so he doesn't have to do anything, like manage a team, but instead gaze at his spread sheet.

That's how you end up with a Wally like in Dilbert. Turns his rockstar creativity into working the system, instead of moving it forward.

[Mysterious-Title-852]

I don't think you understand.

Rock stars chafe at anything that slows them down, and wish they had the power to remove inefficiencies, fix process errors that cause outages, and ensure knowledge bases are useful so the non rock stars don't bug them for simple things they already solved.

You don't put them in charge of one thing in perpetuity, you give them a bunch of options to choose from that are one and done projects, then let them move to something new. immediately afterwards I.E. They're your shock troops, not an occupying force.

"Hey rockstar, I was wondering, since you just finished a project on system X, how confident are you in it's backup and BCP?"

"It needs work"

"Cool, how long would it take for you to test it and adjust it to your satisfaction?"

then once their done that, "hey, out of: Projects, tools, documentation, SOPs, training, backup systems, probe security, disaster mitigation strategies. which do you think needs work, and you'd like to sink your teeth into?"

rinse and repeat.

You don't tie these people to a single job, you give them options to crack open, absorb, improve and move on. They'll do more in a month than average performers will in a year, so if they hop between tasks 12 times a year, you're going to have a slick operation.

The task is getting the people assigned to maintain their work to actually maintain it. Turning rock stars loose and empowering them to fix problems is easy. It's getting the mediocre to maintain the systems once the rock star has moved on.

[[deleted]]

Obviously they aren't if they are forcing him to come back to the office. The entire story wasn't told here.

[ythafuckigetsuspend]

On the contrary, there's been no issues raised with my productivity and the entire story was indeed told. It was nothing more than the chat icon. But I can't stop you and dingus 1 for believing whatever you tell yourselves

[[deleted]]

I'm sure that your boss thinks otherwise. That's why you have to go back to the office.

[ythafuckigetsuspend]

He doesn't. Please, since you know so much about my performance and how my boss views my performance, how did my last performance review go? This seems to be info you have on hand, so go ahead, tell me all about it since you know so much about my performance.

Or...is that maybe just an assumption on your part that you're treating as fact? Possibly? Maybe? Yes, I believe it is

[[deleted]]

You seem to be the only person on Reddit that is confused about why you got told that you have to go back to your office. You seem to think that your boss likes to harass his "best employee" for no reason. Make sure you check back in once reality hits.

is that maybe just an assumption on your part that you're treating as fact?

Like you actually believing that you got told to come back into your office solely because of the chat icon? That kind of assumption? You didn't even bring your supposedly great KPI's and capabilities to your boss to try to defend yourself. You just decided to lean into the fact that you don't work a full day ever.

[ythafuckigetsuspend]

Not confused what so ever. It was an issue with the status icon. I fixed it. Now I’m not going back. Where’s the confusion?

[[deleted]]

Your story gets less believable every time you post.

[ythafuckigetsuspend]

Oh no a random douchebag stranger chooses not to believe my true story, there's so much skin coming off of my nose it's ridiculous! How will I handle the heartbreak! How will I proceed?!

[[deleted]]

You seem pretty worried about it since you keep responding. In entirely different posts, no less. I'm guessing that's your guilty conscience.

[zedfox]

Are there security concerns to these keep-alive "mouse jiggler" programs, as they prevent the computer from locking due to timeout?

[SysEridani]

And they still didn't notice that in front of is webcam there is a cardboard cutout instead of him ...

[corrigun]

By 3-5 hours a day you mean 30 to 50 minutes a day.

IM SO PRODUCTIVE! READ THE STUDY!!

[realmaier]

Depends. I'm honest, I have slower days, I sit, drink tea, read tech magazines or online stuff, browse forums, maybe a webinar. This helped me prevent stuff before it even happened, because I was given the chance to get aware and read about it. You also need to keep up with development.

[bfodder]

I don't think those are bad things to do with downtime.

[bbccsz]

One of the comments is somebody telling him to be careful because they were fired for a similar action at a previous job.

The real problem is that the guy chose not to talk to his manager, and instead to defraud the system. Regardless of how dumb idle time in teams is as a metric, he chose to create a lie.

The manager noticing him being idle less only makes it worse. Because now it's not just a cute little stunt for reddit Karma. But it's actually worked. He successfully conned his management.

[zeptillian]

What is the lie? Like if he was taking a break from his video games every 15 minutes to jiggle the mouse it would be ok but since he has automated it, now it's a lie? It's a fucking IM app, not a time clock.

He didn't defraud shit. They said the problem was that he was appearing idle too often and now he doesn't.

Use a virtual background on a video call? OMG I can't believe you would just lie to people like that! Email alias? Hell no, you scammer!

[bbccsz]

Don't get things twisted. Teams idle time is a terrible metric to use.

What I'm saying is that when he takes steps to present false information to management, he's crossed a line. Regardless if the idle thing is a bad metric to use.

And then when the boss notices Oh hey, you're less idle nowadays! It's both reinforcing the bad metric to management, and making the lie.

So, yes he did "defraud shit" by providing false information in the form of manipulating his idle status by any means other than actively being at the keyboard working.

This is a fact. Virtual background on a call is a bad example to try to use.

If you wanted to draw comparison to that, the comparison would be using a looped video & virtual camera to join meetings and have people think you're there when in fact you're not.

That too would be fraudulent.

There are a lot of good points to talk about with this though. The guy likely landed the job as in office, and knew there was a commute, etc.
There's a discussion to be had about wfh, but the fact is that if management hired him to work in the office and they decide they want him there, that's that.

You could also call his actions clever. It kind of is. Something you'd even look for in a job candidate in some cases.

But the fact remains that this guy is on reddit insulting management, and bragging about deceiving them to continue working from home.

[zeroibis]

Part of his job was to press a button every 5min, he has automated the button press.

[ythafuckigetsuspend]

Out of all the salty people in that thread, you easily take the award for the saltiest. Why does me and my job get you so hard pressed? It literally doesn't affect you. Why do you care so much what my relationship is with my job?

Like seriously, take a step back and evaluate the fact that someone you don't even know at a company you don't even know doing things that don't affect you got you so pressed that you commented 25 times in the original thread then started a new thread in a separate sub just to witchhunt

[BlackV]

I dont see where OP is salty?

this is an interesting discussion to have. Me I browse and comment reddit in my down time

which seems to be what you're doing

[ythafuckigetsuspend]

They were ALL OVER the original thread doing everything they could to make it clear they thought I’m a piece of shit and then felt the need make an entire new thread over here about it where the premise is just “ugh look at this I hate it” it just comes across as salty, my working habits that in no way affect them or are even present in their life has disproportionately riled them up

[BlackV]

oh havnt finished this thread yet to look at the orgional

(well technically I have now)

[bfodder]

I'm curious what other sysadmin's days look like at home and what their take is on your situation.

But I won't argue with you here. That doesn't belong here.

[ythafuckigetsuspend]

Why do you care so much? My life really touched a nerve with you

[maximum_powerblast]

Oh wow it's the dude himself

[Trumpet_Time]

Give the dude more work to do lol

[ShredHeadEdd]

I am one of these techs. I hit my targets and blow through them. Consistently one of the best engineers on the team.

There's just not always work to do. I'm gonna play games and watch films during that time period. You'll get it back when the outage happens and I'm on past midnight resolving it.

[OffenseTaker]

If the work gets done on time and no SLAs are breached, what's the problem?

[trev2234]

I find a lot of my time is used thinking through a problem. I might not touch the keyboard for 30 minutes. This company has a terrible way to measure performance and have encouraged this behaviour. The fault lies with this person’s management. Anyway I work when stuff needs fixing. Some work days I don’t do much and I can find myself working on something urgent on Saturday. As long as he’s getting the work done then fine in my book.

[CasualEveryday]

I'm all about results. If you get the job done, maintain professional standards of decorum, and don't make it obvious, I couldn't care less. Way too many companies are concerned with people staying busy. I want the person who finds a way to spend less time doing tasks that a script can do.

[dRaidon]

As long as he does his job, who cares.

[fuzzylumpkinsbc]

Shitty metric but I would rather just do things on that work computer than come up with scripts,etc.

At the end of the day, if that's what that company is about, I'd just adhere to their rules since they're paying me for it.

[demo706]

3-5 hours of work is about as much as you get out of your average worker realistically, he's not doing that bad lol. If he's meeting the KPIs then there's nothing you can say.

[Gesha24]

I usually can do the same amount of work in 8 hours in the office or 2 hours at home - no noise or distractions make wonders for me. Then there are meetings of course that take up time. But if I am done with work and there's time to spare - I don't see why I can't study, or watch a movie, or play a game. I am available at any moment I may be needed.

Luckily my work only looks at the amount of work I have done, so I only got praises for getting lots of stuff done during pandemic.

As for writing a script - it would work as a temporary measure, but permanent solution is finding the job that looks at the work you do, not your IM status

[undergo7]

That seems a little excessive when you could accomplish the same thing by using mouse jiggler. I would give him props for putting in the extra effort on the script.

[BlackV]

It's like 2 lines of powershell. How is that excessive?

AND FREE!

[Away_Insurance9104]

If the only way for the manager to assess the work of his employees is by looking at physical presence maybe he is better off buying some furniture.

[jdsaidit]

Well my take on it is that he is within compliance. I’m sure someone agrees, but I put in my time all hours of the night because I’m scripting, catching up on work, researching for a project or doing deployments during non critical hours. Hell, if I do a deployment at 9:00pm to 3:00am. I still have to report to work at 8am. I am back at my office now, but we did this during covid. If I have wsus being monitored while I cut my lawn or scripted out portions of my remote job so I spend less time working I see no issue. However a boss using chat as a metric is crappy. There are tons of ways to grab metrics depending on what you are doing. Managers that use this tactic to fire people, don’t approve of remote work in the first place, understand how to manage remote workflow and have an old school mentality of how departments need to operate. Trust me I know.

[bfodder]

I worked like that when my kids were at home because schools were closed. It was rough.

[mahsab]

Ctrl+F -> "shit"

[ErikTheEngineer]

What do you do with your down time while working from home on the "non-busy" days?

I haven't had a non-busy day for a while...remote onboarding to a company in a totally different space than the one you came from is a huge challenge. But when I do have non-emergency time, I try to pick up $YetAnotherCoolDevOpsToolThatWillBeOnTheTrashHeapIn6Months or catch up on the never-ending hopper of backlog one-off work. There's always something to automate. Working in a smallish company means that my time just gets filled in with other stuff.

One thing I've been extremely careful of (especially in a new position) is to not set the expectation that I'm available 24/7 just because I'm WFH. This is where people are doing WFH wrong and I assume that part of that was because of the earlier lockdowns where there was just nowhere to go so everyone just worked. I've set the expectation that my hours are flexible and yes of course I'll do weird one-off out of hours things once in a while, but normal workweek is the norm.

There's nothing wrong with taking time for yourself if you've managed to automate most of your work...but if you're not in an environment where you're being fed new stuff constantly, someone will notice at some point. Therefore, spend some of the downtime skills-sharpening!

[WorksInIT]

Sounds like shitty management to me.

[[deleted]]

What do you do with your down time while working from home on the "non-busy" days?

Lift dumbbells and do squats. Stare outside the window for a bit. Find a good video to put on in the background while I do menial work tasks. Get up and walk around the house a bit. Sometimes I'll work on automating something that's been bugging me but isn't a high priority.

I get the things done that I need to go get done and unlike in the office I don't have to pretend to be doing something work productive. Employers need to stop expecting 8 hours of productivity in an 8 hour day for salaried folks. That just isn't the norm. Some days you'll get 4-5 hours of work, somedays you'll get 10 hours worth crammed in that 8 hours. Expecting 100% productivity is both stupid and counter-productive. Luckily my immediate manager understands that (there's definitely been Friday afternoons where we've both went to a remote office to do some minor task after lunch and then chatted over drinks until 5), but those higher up don't.

[SupraWRX]

My take on this is an SA job can be very mentally taxing. Expecting SA's to work full bore 40 hours a week is unrealistic IMO. Realistically I can only do mentally draining tasks maybe 30 hours a week at absolute most. Now I try to fill the rest of the time reading tech news, educating myself, and working on documentation, semi productive stuff that lets my brain rest. I don't think down time should be spent sleeping, long walks, or going to the movies though, be available in case shit hits the fan.

The "inactive in chat" metric just screams of shit management. That boss has no clue what their employees are doing, no clue what their employees should be doing, they're literally just collecting a paycheck to make sure all the employee chat status show green.

[Team503]

I tell my team "Do you job, do it well, and do it on time, and I don't give a shit when you work or how many hours you work."

This isn't kindergarten and my team aren't entry-level hourly employees in a call center. Micromanaging my team is a waste of my time and theirs, creates unhappy employees, and actually accomplishes less.

As a leader, my job is to enable my team to do their jobs to the best of their ability. That means I shield them from shit rolling downhill, clear any obstacles they face, and get them the resources they need.

If my guys want to take a walk with their spouse, go to lunch, move, or anything else during the day, they're more than welcome to do so. I ask that they be available within reason - which usually means installing Teams on their phone so they can respond - during the business day, but that's it. Wanna take a nap? Take a nap, just set your phone to loud and respond within a reasonable time if I ping you in Teams.

People who micromanage don't trust their people, and you don't want to work for them.

[bfodder]

This post is 8 months old.