Comment by p0w3n3d
4 hours ago
Doesn't visiting hacker news count as personal growth? Or am I supposed to grow professionally outside the work?
4 hours ago
Doesn't visiting hacker news count as personal growth? Or am I supposed to grow professionally outside the work?
Yep.
One time my manager did a hour long lecture for our team on how personal growth is important and that we all should expand our horizons and learn new stuff.
When I tried to reserve 2 hours A WEEK for studying tasks I got push back that I should do it on my own time. It was a complete joke.
This sounds like the "everything you create in your own time is company property since we cannot distinguish if what you do in your own time isn't company related" clause in some contracts. Under no circumstance is it actable where I live, but it can sure scare the hell out of people and presents a line of thought. Yes, some companies think they can own copyright on the things you write at home.
I call that the "shower clause," because the company claims ownership of any ideas you come up with, in the shower.
I think, like noncompetes, there's limits to how far the company can actually enforce it, but they bank on the fact that they have lawyers on permanent retainer, and you don't. Even standing up for your rights, against blatant corporate overreach, is expensive.
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I always ask companies to remove that clause from contracts, I think all offers I've ever got had that clause, but also 100% removed it on request.
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If my contract says that I must be available immediately at any time, do I have ANY personal time? Or is all of my time their time too?
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In the US, the enforceability of that sort of thing depends on the state. Generally, if that state enforces non-competes (other than for selling the business, or managerial staff), then it most likely enforces "you're salaried, so everything you invent belongs to us".
The legal term to search is "work for hire".
> When I tried to reserve 2 hours A WEEK for studying tasks
I've never understood why employees push for official approval like this. It's not surprising you don't get officially dedicated "study time". The vast majority of programmers aren't hourly anyway, so officially sanctioned study hours doesn't even fit in with how work is prioritized. Not to mention the optics look terrible if your team is ever behind your manager is now in the awkward position have having "non-work" on record as part of what you're getting paid for.
Just bring your book with you and read during slow period, when a job is running, model training etc. You're not hourly anyway, so in theory any non-project time is your time anyway.
I've never had official permission to study at work about I've also never had any problem studying at work. If you're shipping consistently and high quality nobody is going to care if you're occasionally reading through a book chapter or watching a lecture online.
My last employer had a monthly Day of Learning where you could study whatever you want (so long as you could sort of tie it back to work). It was great. They’d organize presentations from employees but you could spend the whole day essentially however you wanted.
> If you're shipping consistently and high quality nobody is going to care if you're occasionally reading through a book chapter or watching a lecture online.
Or if they do, it's a toxic workplace.
[dead]
This is when I would look up the nearest course for the subject that the job would want me to study, including the cost, time and travel distance. Talk is always much cheaper than the real thing.
I wonder what happens when you have kids and you can no longer spend your free time to keep learning new things that your company wants you to know.
(Just kidding, I know what happens... they will fire you and hire someone who doesn't have kids.)
> (Just kidding, I know what happens... they will fire you and hire someone who doesn't have kids.)
And then the boss will blame young people for collapsing the demography and endangering the country.
You either fall behind/into a rut, or like you said, get let go. It’s scary
I'm experiencing a similar thing- company pushes online lectures but don't even think about putting them on the sprint board.
Most of my knowledge of new tools comes from newsletters, forums, and content creators. I find things through passive media consumption (and, where I can get it, discourse with other enthusiasts) more often than I find them in the course of trying to solve specific problems.
But not all managers think that your learning sources are valid, and care more that you spend time on their learning paths. Even if it's your off time.
(Yes, there is a story attached to this haha... and more importantly, several different writeups[1][2][3] on how random internet wanderings have been more beneficial to my overall technological capability than people who insist on the importance of a CS background when building dashboards and client UIs. In practice, thanks to a dev box with insufficient RAM, and your typical tabbed-browsing problem, I used `pkill` over `ssh` -- something I picked up from toying with Over the Wire levels in my off time -- a lot more often than I used linked lists at that job.)
[1] bhmt.dev/blog/scraping
[2] bhmt.dev/blog/ctf
[3] bhmt.dev/blog/feeds
One time my manager messaged me panicking about a big nextjs vulnerability. I told him, no worries, I saw it on HN and we patched weeks ago. He told me to use HN at work as much as I want.
No. You should grow professionally outside of work by also following the work-mandated professional development plan. And you will be punished if you don't do it, or you do it at a pace that doesn't match expectations.
You know, don't forget the details.
I once got told for an internal promotion I couldn't put anything regarding my current role, responsibilities and achievements in the role. I got told to put any volunteering or previous.
Reason given was it's what is expected at work everything you do in your role, you need to show above and beyond.
Seems like that'd just discourage people from going above and beyond at work. Why do more than the bare minimum to avoid being fired if nothing else you do counts?
>Look, we want you to express yourself, okay? Now if you feel that the bare minimum is enough, then okay. But some people choose to wear more and we encourage that, okay? You do want to express yourself, don't you?
(This is from Office Space for those who don’t know. Hilarious scene with Jennifer Aniston)
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Or grow professionally during work hours using a personal device.
You're 100% supposed to grow professionally outside of work.
And catch up on chores during work hours
What else would you do when i̶t̶'s̶ c̶o̶m̶p̶i̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ claude is generating?
Says who?
pass
This is such a curious POV for me - I'd genuinely like to hear your thoughts on this. Who owns your career growth if not.. you?
(If you don't desire to grow your career, that's a viewpoint I can entirely understand.)
Maybe? And yes.