That reads sarcastic, but in today’s workplace you really need to know the legal framework you’re working within or you’ll probably be fleeced or worse. How lawyers charge actually is instructive.
> “The time we have alone, the time we have in walking, the time we have in riding a bicycle, is the most important time for a writer. Escaping from the typewriter is part of the creative process. You have to give the subconscious time to think. Real thinking always occurs at the subconscious level.” - Ray Bradbury
> "When the manuscript had lain in a pigeon hole two years I took it out one day and read the last chapter that I had written. It was then that I made the great discovery that when the tank runs dry you've only to leave it alone and it will fill up again in time, while you are asleep -- also while you are at work on other things and are quite unaware that this unconscious and profitable cerebration is going on." - Mark Twain
> ‘I didn’t stir out yesterday, but sat and thought all day; not writing a line; not so much as the cross of a t or the dot of an i. I imaged forth a good deal of Barnaby by keeping my mind steadily upon him; and am happy to say I have gone to work this morning in good twig, strong hope and cheerful spirits. Last night I was unutterably and impossible-to-form-an-idea-of-ably miserable.’ - Charles Dickens
I regularly catch myself thinking and telling my wife I've had a very unproductive day and didn't work much when I spent the majority of it working through internal memos, email, and otherwise just getting caught up on the company happenings.
It isn't really work. It's squarely in the bullshit side of "bullshit jobs".
I don't really miss label other things like documentation, research, testing or project spiking but those too very regularly get forgotten and don't feel significant to bullet point in my daily standup.
As someone who finds coding completely unsatisfying and who instead chose to have a career sitting in meetings to discuss what the business should do, I find this pretty funny.
I can’t imagine anything being as satisfying as communicating well with another person.
What a narrow world view.
There are “schmoozers” who are completely satisfied and coders who dread their work lives...
There are also schmoozers who create value beyond anything many single coders could ever dream of: by raising capital, creating multimillion sales, persuading and inspiring others, etc.
And I say this as someone who switched from a management job to designing and coding because I personally find it much more fulfilling.
Just assume the people you're writing to aren't all idiots. If you really think OP meant what you thought, ask them.
The original quote or calling non-coders “schmoozers” (their words, not mine), are in fact, no longer there as far as I can see.
It wasn’t taken out of context, there was not that much nuance to the sentence I quoted.
Apologies.
However consider that there's entire classes of people who never do anything as satisfying as coding during their day. All they do is communicate in some way: making powerpoints, schmoozing with customers over lunch, sitting in meetings to discuss what the business should do. Typically you'll never find one of those people saying they don't do much. In fact, many of them feel compelled to sit in the office - face time - to look busy. If you were to narrowly define their work like I've done with software devs, many people would end up with maybe a couple of hours a day, mainly reading some docs to decide what their business unit should do.