Re:Management things I learned at Imgur
by 2chen on Sunday June 21, 2015 @03:27AM
(#9752550)
There's nothing inherently wrong with that kind of person. The problem arises when you mix the two types of people in a demanding environment where more than the status quo is expected (e.g., at a startup). If you want to coast, stick to defense.
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The problem arises when managers have unrealistic expectations. If you hire someone to do 9-5 job and you expect them to do more than that, it's your fault if that fails, not theirs. Different people have different priorities in life, some will be ready to work more to finish more tasks, others will be ready to work just 8h but will be more productive in that timeframe. Or will produce better quality of code during that time or solve harder problems. Not all tasks are the same, nor all programmers produce equal quality of code, so the number of closed tickets in a unit of time is not a very good metric and definitely shouldn't be the only one that matters for an IT company.
> If you hire someone to do 9-5 job and you expect them to do more than that, it's your fault if that fails, not theirs.
I think the biggest teller of an unmotivated person is a generally negative, problem-focussed attitude. No matter the hour of the day, "We can't do x, because..." will destroy nearby "We can do this, if...." people, eventually.
Startups can operate just fine with 9-5 workers. The real limit is startups are generally spinning there wheels on unimportant crap.