If you're in places where you're getting away with this, the likelihood is everyone knows but doesn't say anything because they're doing something similar. Including your managers.
Most businesses just don't need all their employees running at full capacity. I've been professionally programming for nearly 30 years and I've seen this be true in small businesses with < 10 employees and in Fortune 500 megacompanies. So there's often an unspoken agreement to be comfortable and cruise. This can extend even to upper management and owners.
The weird thing is you can often get yourself into trouble if you get too ambitious in such situations. People don't want their comfy little boats rocked too much.
From my experience the places that require running on all cylinders all the time are either incompetently managed (which includes understaffing) or very ambitious. Or both I suppose. The thing is, real ambition is much rarer than you'd think given how much society claims to value it.
I've had times when I was happy at both ends of the scale. Cruising is comfortable. Ambition is exciting. Both work for me at different times, but I do eventually tire of too much of either.
I will say ambition and full-speed-ahead only works for me when the goal is something that has value to me. Either a big financial reward or I believe in what we're building. I'm not going to do it as a cog writing your accounting software package.
Most businesses just don't need all their employees running at full capacity. I've been professionally programming for nearly 30 years and I've seen this be true in small businesses with < 10 employees and in Fortune 500 megacompanies. So there's often an unspoken agreement to be comfortable and cruise. This can extend even to upper management and owners.
The weird thing is you can often get yourself into trouble if you get too ambitious in such situations. People don't want their comfy little boats rocked too much.
From my experience the places that require running on all cylinders all the time are either incompetently managed (which includes understaffing) or very ambitious. Or both I suppose. The thing is, real ambition is much rarer than you'd think given how much society claims to value it.
I've had times when I was happy at both ends of the scale. Cruising is comfortable. Ambition is exciting. Both work for me at different times, but I do eventually tire of too much of either.
I will say ambition and full-speed-ahead only works for me when the goal is something that has value to me. Either a big financial reward or I believe in what we're building. I'm not going to do it as a cog writing your accounting software package.