Hacker News is so full of corporate shills it is laughable.
The guy is making a point here.
Do not add to your employer's assets unless you are expressly instructed to.
Quite simply, don't write any software to improve your employer's operations unless you are instructed by your boss to do so. Don't use your own initiative to do something unless it is acknowledged and approved by your superiors.
Factory workers don't go about fixing broken equipment on the assembly line. The equipment manufacturer's service employees are the ones who do it. Trust me, those guys won't touch any piece of equipment until they are instructed to do so in writing from the customer or from their managers.
Software and engineering guys are only to happy to write stuff for their employees and even sign agreements not to develop their own software even when it isn't done on company time.
Exactly. The ideology that romanticizes free labor is very strong in software industry. Would my employer spend extra hours just to make me more comfortable or to help solving my problems? Would they be proactive to find ways to increase my wage instead of their profits? If not, why should I act in the opposite way going out my way to help their profits? We have a contract, so I fulfill exactly what is written in the contract: no more and no less. And even accepting this, I am being very generous, as I know that I produce more wealth than what I am paid for.
> Quite simply, don't write any software to improve your employer's operations unless you are instructed by your boss to do so. Don't use your own initiative to do something unless it is acknowledged and approved by your superiors.
Heh, are there actual companies where this is possible? If I went off coding random pet projects to "improve operations" I'd get in trouble real quick. Unless it's discussed and prioritized from higher up it's hard to make time to work on substantial projects. Maybe I should be looking for a new opportunity eh!
> Heh, are there actual companies where this is possible?
I've seen companies where this was presented as a benefit. The small ones said things like "you have X ours a week you can spend working on whatever part of our product/infrastructure you want, even outside your current role!" while bigger ones restricted it to "corporate hackathons" (aka work after hours for a cold pizza and some warm beer).
If there's a why to persuade an engineer to work for free, out there there's at least a couple MBAs who've tried it.
The guy is making a point here.
Do not add to your employer's assets unless you are expressly instructed to.
Quite simply, don't write any software to improve your employer's operations unless you are instructed by your boss to do so. Don't use your own initiative to do something unless it is acknowledged and approved by your superiors.
Factory workers don't go about fixing broken equipment on the assembly line. The equipment manufacturer's service employees are the ones who do it. Trust me, those guys won't touch any piece of equipment until they are instructed to do so in writing from the customer or from their managers.
Software and engineering guys are only to happy to write stuff for their employees and even sign agreements not to develop their own software even when it isn't done on company time.