[alt text: a photo of two kids sliding down two separate playground slides (chutes) that are side-by-side but end in the same place. The left slide is captioned: “Being a slacker at work”. The right side is captioned: “Being the go-to-guy at work”. The bottom part where the slides meet is labeled: “No raises”.]
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The secret I’ve found to a wonderful work life balance is to become indispensable in knowledge, but to not do much or any labor; just be a walking encyclopedia for your job role that enables others to do their’s.
For managers who do not yet understand your new work dynamic, make sure to say ‘yes’ , very enthusiastically, to whatever they ask, but then just don’t actually do it. They’ll learn to stop asking, but they can’t afford to lose you either.
Rejoice, you are now an “SME”.
Being the go-to-person can help you, but it hinges on a lot of external factors, most of which you have limited insight on.
- What is the company’s headcount/internal hire/pay raise policy?
- Who (of importance) actually recognizes you as the go-to person?
- Of those who do recognize that, how many are aware that you are actually going above and beyond your requirements?
- Of those again, who is actually going to advocate for you, with or without you asking?
I prefer to get paid for your job twice - today for the work you’re doing now, and again for the skills/knowledge you gain that sets you apart when you job-hop. Master that tricky welding technique, get a professional certification, develop a new app, get guild/union membership, etc just find something that you can take with you.
My work philosophy is; be ready to do whatever needs to be done, but let the go-getters go get-em
The price for being the go-to guy is more workload.
yep i was raised to have a good ole fashioned work ethic. turns out, that was shit advice. now i mosey. still get paid the same 🤷🏻
The place I work for always boasts about how we’re making millions of extra dollars each year. But raises (if any!) have not kept up with inflation. I’m able to save far less money than I could when I started in 2019 and my lifestyle hasn’t changed at all other than trying to live more frugally over time.
My workplace also keeps putting in monitoring tools that continue to get more invasive over time. The most recent addition is seeing mouse movement, clicks and scrolls, keyboard inputs and how often there are page/program changes on your screen. There’s still ways around it, but it’s annoying because it doesn’t solve the productivity/morale issues and just makes them worse lol.
It’s like…the solution is right in front of their noses. Just treat people better/not like robots
It’s like…the solution is right in front of their noses. Just treat people better/not like robots
I’ve been saying this in response to a lot of things lately, but… people are emotional. It’s an emotional problem. Management feels a way, mostly contempt, and any studies about how treating people better would be cost-effective don’t matter. Studies show that a 4-day workweek is good for productivity and profits? Nope, feels wrong, can’t be true.
Essentially, people are stupid and I don’t know how to fix it. Can’t just bop a CEO on the nose with a newspaper when he’s being bad, unfortunately.
Heh, bopping them on the nose with the newspaper would be pretty sick though.
I hope the whole 4 day work week eventually takes off. That would be wonderful. A whole extra day to recharge. Amazing.
You’re probably right about it being an emotional issue. It’s probably difficult to accept that doing something like that could help produce better results.
No raises, no bonuses, no pension, no benefits, no loyalty, but god damn if the company isn’t posting record profits every quarter.
Why would they pay us if we accept the current conditions?
Maybe the slacker slacks because they’ve been screwed over on raises and promotions too many times and the go-to-guy just hasn’t been there long enough to learn that lesson.
Food for thought.
There are plenty of career Hank Hills and SpongeBobs who are just too dedicated to the job to care about being screwed over.
And Boomers who made their jobs their whole identity while hating their families. So all they have is work, and thus poison the well of work/life balance. Also they refuse to step down from leadership positions that they Peter-principled into.
without actual incentives there’s no way to tell the difference between a legit slacker and someone who’s just had enough of corporate’s shit.
I’m the best worker you’ve ever had and you’ll never know.
Yup. I’ve been both.
I am currently both. But I slack because I am the go-to guy for knowledge, not doing
