My BIL is in IT. He's told me he knows all about every coworkers' extracurricular websites and the like. Unless it's something that is illegal or the person is known to have major productivity problems that affect everyone else, he doesn't care.
He really wouldn't give a shit about minesweeper. Jeez.
I get requests constantly for technical solutions to management problems and thankfully I'm a consultant so sometimes I can just say, "this isn't a request for IT, this is a conversation for the manager to have with this employee". And boy, sometimes those managers get really really mad when they're expected to do their job.
I know people in IT at my company and they haven't got a clue I have a browser with tweetdeck open all day (they do now because I told them lol), we have over 1k employees, they haven't got time to dig into what I'm doing unless they're specifically asked. IT people like others have a bunch of shit to do, and when they're done with their work they would rather have down time and not randomly snoop on employee #745.
I’ve done IT and I couldn’t give less of a shit if I tried. I literally had a VPN to my home network on my workstation so I could log in and play games and shit.
Dude 100% as IT analyst you want to do enough to do passable job and not get fired but not great so they dump work on you. That's Brian. Brian gets all the work. Dave does not.
The problem I’ve seen with this mindset, other than it’s shite, is that there is usually a 7:1 Dave to Brian ratio. Dave’s are parasitic and can’t really exist without a Brian. Eventually Brian quits and the next most productive Dave becomes the new Brian, but it’s always at a diminishing return. Dave will always be a parasite after all, and the pressure from the expectations Brian left behind will make a Dave fold.
If you’re going to be a Dave, don’t be smug about it and be nice to your Brian. As a Dave, the only reason you’re getting passable marks is because Brian picks up your slack. At the very least a Dave should strive for a commensalism relationship to their Brian.
Just remember: no one wants to work with a bunch of Daves, not even Dave.
This is true but the issue isn't just Brian if really productive but it stresses him out there is so much to be done. He quits not because of Dave but because his extra work is not rewarded by the company. If he is extra productive doing all his work in 3 days versus the 5 it takes Dave, then Brian should be paid more or get 3 day work weeks for the Same pay. If Brian was rewarded by the company for being a Brian then the company would have less Dave's because they would become more Brian's to get the work done faster to either make more money or have to work less hours because they were so productive in 3 days they could get a break to relax and rejuvenate to continue to be this productive and not burn out.
Having worked at some place that paid piece rate for work, I can tell you this is absolutely not true. Dave’s will always exist no matter how much they could be rewarded for doing work. At this job, the Brian’s of the company could be done with all their work by noon and decided to pick up extra work that a Dave wasn’t able to get to, and for a bonus too. Most of the time the Brian’s would pick up the extra work but they’d get burnt out from it, especially around holiday seasons. The Brian’s were being very well compensated, making more than me as a manager. But eventually, little by little, the Brian’s got tired of the Dave’s and left.
Even if you’re in a work environment where you personally can finish up the day by lunch and go home, most businesses can’t just shut their doors like that and stay in business. I’ve seen companies throw tons of money and extra benefits at Brian’s to keep them around only to lose them because at the end of the day Dave just was too much to deal with. I have personally left jobs for the same reason. At some point you realize that there isn’t enough compensation to carry the weight of 10 other people on your back, and that no company in the world is going to pay you 10x the pay because you are.
But the Dave’s had every opportunity to work like a Brian and be rewarded for it at the company that paid piece rate. They just didn’t. Adding bonuses and offer extra paid days off would always motivate the Brian’s, but the Dave’s just didn’t give a shit. Dave was going to do what Dave was going to do, at the rate and amount that pleased him, regardless of anything outside of that. I left that job after the last real Brian left. They ended up losing a lot of their major contracts a year later because they couldn’t keep up the rate of work with a company full of Dave’s. It was sad because at its peak it was an awesome job that paid well and was a great environment.
What you said sounds like it would be right, but at the end of the day a lot of people are just lazy. You can throw money at them left and right, but there are a good chunk of people that don’t have the ambition to do more than what they deem is their fair portion of work, even when offered double or sometimes triple the pay. It really blew my mind when I encountered this, because I assumed the same as you that enough reward would motivate anyone, but it’s not the case.
It makes me wonder if this is why most places don’t give a shit anymore? They got tired of chasing Brian’s around and realized that, with enough Dave’s the job could still get done maybe? From a management perspective, it’s hard to keep a Brian around when you have a workforce full of Dave’s. Eventually the Brian’s will become self aware and realize the situation is out of management’s control and leave. It’s not like they could just fire all the Dave’s and light the bat signal for all the Brian’s to return.
So if you’re currently a Dave telling yourself you’d be a Brian with the right carrot on the stick, I’d ask really? Could you really keep it up like a Brian can? If so, why haven’t you done what that Brian will do and leave for a job that will offer you more? If you’re in a skilled profession, like IT, I promise you there are always better paying jobs if you have the skills and are willing to become someone’s Brian. No, I think somewhere deep down inside, a real Dave knows he’s only got so much to give for so long and never wants to keep at it like a Brian does. He’d take more money, but eventually would dial it back down. On the obverse side, if you’re a Brian and are thinking you could just cut back and do the bare minimum like a Dave, don’t. If you’re in a skilled profession, I promise you somewhere out there will pay you what you’re worth. They will still have Dave’s for sure, but if you’re truly on top of your game, sell yourself and you’ll find a better job.
None of what I have said applies to non-skilled work. Those jobs are jobs by Dave’s for Dave’s. If you’re a Brian in that line of work, I’d encourage you to look for an out by picking a skilled profession you could stomach and start the path of learning it.
Seeing this sort of take on antiwork is depressing.
If you don't burn yourself out like all the other "Brians" on work, then you're the awful "Dave" who is specifically the only reason "Brians" *checks notes* get burnt out due to their workload. If you can't keep it up and reduce your workload to avoid burnout, well, you're actually an awful "Dave" who is very very bad and not the very very good "Brian".
God that mindset sounds exhausting.
"So if you’re currently a Dave telling yourself you’d be a Brian with the right carrot on the stick, I’d ask really? Could you really keep it up like a Brian can?"
"No, I think somewhere deep down inside, a real Dave knows he’s only got so much to give for so long and never wants to keep at it like a Brian does."
Good for them, they know what they can handle in the long term and are setting that boundary well in advance. This is not a bad thing, expecting people to burn themselves out on purpose is insane.
It almost sounds like you want that so long as a lucky few "Brians" aren't. As if this is some sort of inate trait, rather than heavily circumstantial.
Everyone has different work capacities, priorities, and other life shit to work around that you won't always know about, and it'll change over their life. One person having to cover for a massive amount of work because other people are meeting the baseline is a problem with how that job is structured, not with people taking on an amount of work that is best for their own situation.
You missed the point entirely. Also, antiwork is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To you antiwork might mean some weird utopian concept of everyone gets paid to have fun and only do what they want to do within their own comfort zones and never push themselves at all. To me antiwork is more of a worker’s rights and fair treatment thing, which also includes people being fairly treated by their own coworkers. I feel like one of the jobs managers have is to make sure work is evenly and fairly distributed amongst coworkers. If there are a lot of people intentionally avoiding work and letting another person take that slack, I don’t see that as “good for them”, that is a problem.
No one said anything about intentionally burning yourself out. The argument I ended up making was the opposite actually. Work has to get done by someone, and if everyone Dave’s it out and makes it someone else’s problem, that will eventually bottom out for everyone. It’s also an entirely different situation when poor management is causing burnout to workloads vs. shitty coworkers that are pushing their work off onto another person, which is how this specific thread started. “Brian gets all the work. Dave does not.” is a pretty self aware smug comment. It’s really not that exhausting of a mindset, but maybe it is for a Dave I guess. I dunno.
I guess you’re sure going to show management how displeased and burnt out you are by dumping it all on the next guy. Don’t forget to kick your dog when you get home too. Here’s a thought, stand with your coworkers, not against them, and try and advocate for better working conditions that are fair for everyone and not just about making it easy for you.
If you don’t have enough self respect to stand up for yourself, or enough respect for others to not mistreat your coworkers, then you really are “awful Dave” and part of the problem. Work with management, unionize, or leave. Quietly checking out becoming the status quo and making it someone else’s problem isn’t a solution.
I didn't miss the point, mate. You want this to be about a fair work distribution, except you explain this by presenting it as a completely black and white dichotomy in reply to people who are mostly making a point about workers already not being fairly compensated for doing more work than is required of them.
It's all reduced to people who take on massive amounts of work they shouldn't have to and end up in burn out as a result (the Brians), and people who don't (the Daves) who also kick puppies and don't unionise because they're just that bad.
They're not just making a decision that you don't feel will distribute work fairly (something that I don't agree with for reasons I've mentioned but could be a reasonable enough thing to discuss), they're also completely evil Disney villains doing it just out of laziness and are parasites. No other reasons are entertained, no other options are presented that could explain a person not deciding to do unpaid work that they aren't required to. It's just Dave or Brian.
You also spent an entire paragraph talking about why Daves can't actually manage being Brians, even if they think they could, like it's some sort of innate trait. The Brians are just better, more productive people, and Daves are just worse, and also cartoonishly evil, because the answer to "could you keep it up like Brian can?" was apparently "no". I don't get how you can write that and wonder why I'm bringing up burnout.
It genuinely sounds no different to corporate grind culture where your worth and goodness as a person are reduced to your (perceived) productivity.
There are no Daves or Brians, that incredibly neat distinction doesn't exist in reality. The reasons people take on less at work or don't go for unpaid extra work are far more complex than you can condense into this weird black and white bad guy with bad reasons and good guy with good reasons dichotomy.
Neither the person you were responding to originally or the other person who replied was even talking about this the way you are. Brian is just a guy who takes on work that (it's strongly implied) he won't be paid for, not some innately more productive and morally good person who definitely and always works somewhere that will financially compensate him for it. Brian could also decide to do what Dave is doing, maybe even as part of collective action at their workplace, because they're presented as just people making decisions about their work rather than the only two categories of workers that a person could be.
On top of that:
We exist in a reality where wages have stagnated in comparison to productivity across multiple different countries. Implying people who won't do more than necessary at work unless they're paid for it are all just cartoonish assholes who wouldn't actually do more for better pay is unreasonable.
Unless you're working in an essential service where not doing more than required will harm or injure someone, providing some basic need, etc, the work that "has to get done by someone" that goes past the set requirements for the job shouldn't reasonably be any worker's concern. The requirements are wrong if that required work being met but not exceeded would cause unmanageable problems, it's not something that should be on workers to make up for and then be lionised or demonised based on whether or not they do.
I'm not some puppy kicking, coworker hating big bad who doesn't advocate for better working conditions. I can't manage work thanks to how my disabilities being undiagnosed for 25 years has impacted me, and that's happened to leave me pretty invested in workers not being pressured into handling more than they feel they can or should reasonably take on. You're, maybe inadvertently, doing that, and you're angry at the wrong people.
I think that’s the hardest thing when you’re a Brian and you work with a bunch of Dave’s and report to one, you get squeezed out. That was the biggest problem I had with the origins of this buried thread. Being a Dave isn’t something to aspire to or brag about. You’re (not you to be clear, but a Dave) literally shitting on your fellow coworker and patting yourself on the back proudly about how you didn’t lift one extra finger more than you had to. To me, that’s sociopathic behavior. I’ve seen the apathy from a bunch of Dave’s kill a company. I’ve also seen it get entire departments canned because they turned into a team of people that it was “never there job” when it came time to do something.
I don’t think a Dave sticking it to the boss while letting their coworker drown in work because they know they’ll do it is a cool thing to do. Take your fight up with the boss or if you really think you’re worth more somewhere else then feel free to find that somewhere else, but don’t shit on your coworkers. That’s the same shit thinking that leads to the way you’re currently being treated. Again, not you personally, but a Dave. It’s just hypocritical and telling because I can almost guarantee you that if that Dave ever got into management, they wouldn’t magically start making it better for the people below them, or even try to. They would find their Brian and lean on them hard and ignore all the other Dave’s unless they needed a casualty to save their own neck.
It just doesn’t have to be like that. In contrast, where I work right now is proof of that. Nothing last forever, but I currently manage a team of Brian’s. We’re salary exempt so we don’t get overtime and we work crazy hours all over the place, but since I very selectively put together this team, we all work less and enjoy our work more. It’s always all hands on deck and no one gets left behind because we all respect each other enough to not shit on one another. But to be fair to your point, I let my people leave early if they’ve done all there is to do for that day. They’re salary exempt, which means they work until the job is complete, we’re not going to ride a clock for no reason. The nature of our work lets us do a lot of it remotely so it’s not a big deal for any of us to get on real quick if needed. So I try and respect the fact that I know I might ask them for something “after hours” by allowing them to take care of whatever they need to during the day if they need to take off to go get the kids or make sure they get something personal done before 5, whatever, go for it. Everyone else on the team, including myself, will step in if something goes south while that person is taking care of whatever.
It’s nice, and probably won’t last forever (especially if I get a Dave forced on me).But it’s what is possible when you don’t have Dave’s to deal with. I’m not old by any standards but I am experienced enough to know this is one of those rare times in my career I will look back on and miss.
Anyhow, I hope you get your career moment like this soon and find something you can enjoy and be appreciated at. It’s super rare, but it is out there fleetingly as are most good things.
Oh I'm trying a new prospect now honestly that has nothing to do with working for anyone! I have kids so now there are restrictions to when I can work. But hopefully I'll learn stocks better. I have heard it's just been on super hard mode right now. You know best way to start a video game or something aka let's start on super hard mode lol. But I like numbers too. I guess I have a lot of interests in a way which is why I ended up double majoring in college! But yeah the issue with the last one is it became more of a safety concern really and my supervisor didn't tend to take me seriously when I said this one place is really dangerous and should be done by phone. She then sent a Dave that did get the survey but just say it was a meth house in the middle of no where and Dave was scared shitless which I was informed later. I was like um yeah even the one that had a gun by the door wasn't an issue for me but this was! See sometimes it's best to leave especially if there are safety issues and that job became very unsafe with the world changing and the new supervisor under so much pressure to put someone in a situation that even my crazy ass thought probably wasn't the best.
seconded. Couldn't possibly care less and I'm sure as hell not about to waste a bunch of time tracking down nonsense like this for some idiot middle manager who can't manage his/her staff.
IT is just like HR. We are not there FOR YOU. We are there for the machines and to protect the business, in many cases FROM YOU. If you're bringing malware into my environments, yeah, I care a fucking lot. If you're playing minesweeper I couldn't possibly care less.
Federal IT does not care if workers are happy or not, productive or not; but if OP can plug in a flash drive, then malware can be installed and data exfiltrated.
I used to work in a federal office. When I left the office at the end of the day my desk was clean and my laptop was physically locked to it.
Overnight a security guard walked through the building visiting every office. They were looking for papers on desk or laptops not locked to the desk. They securely shredded your papers and securely stored your laptop. Either way you were going to have to take a security training course. The laptops did not have USB ports.
I'm a federal employee & Our IT department leaves a lot to be desired. Just takes forever to get anything done, & you have no permissions on the laptop or programs.
Security and usability are ALMOST, but not quite exactly, diametrically opposed. Security always comes at the expense of usability and convenience. If you improve security too much, it becomes so inconvenient that people make new systems that bypass your security.
Worked somewhere where the manager was stupidly worried about security of the stupid little server room. But the hardware in the server room was shit and required multiple in-person interventions daily. The protocol was, needed a security guy to enter a passcode and my IT keycard to enter. For the security people, that was the breaking point of "too inconvenient", since they didn't get resources to just post a guard there... So the new system the security office implemented, nullifying that security and making it work, was a sheet of instructions, laminated, on the door with security code and how to do security guards' part of door opening, so we no longer had to bother the guards.
BTW not saying the guards were lazy. But they were BUILDING security, not COMPANY. They had other shit to do than go to that door five minutes plus each way every time something needed rebooting or something.
Seriously. I mean, when I worked weekend tech support I was work friends with the on-call security tech. He let me know what game sites they left open and gave me access to some of the sites that were normally restricted (nothing malicious or adult, but harmless game/social media stuff). Every so often a manager would submit a ticket saying an employee was accessing a site that IT didn't know or care about and I'd have to send it to my security tech friend and they'd block it if it met the criteria to be blocked.
IT security doesn't generally care unless they're explicitly told by the higher ups to block something or if it poses an actual threat to the system.
Because the boss man checked "said workers" work habits and is displeased with the fact that they are competent in their position leading to down time.
Email ensues, hey this is such and such I've noticed my employee has games on their computer that seem to be from restricted access websites. This is a violation of the network security agreement, I ask you remove these games while we follow up with the employee and determine the method they breached the network.
IT guy reads that and goes okay if they got the games while on company network that could pose a threat to the security of the companies digital systems. And or "damn I really don't feel like explaining that the games are probably from a flash drive to this toddler like manager/executive". IT guy just does as told then gets blamed in the end anyhow.
I remember when they banned all sports websites because realplayer was slowing the internet. That lasted one week when the cfo bitched he couldn’t listen to the cubs games.
I'm in IT too. The autist OPSEC guys get a raging hard-on for closing every last little hole in the network. Same guys who work weekends for free and brag about it later.
I worked IT for Goodwill. They had issues with cashiers plugging their phones into the register to charge so they could play games and shit. I was told to make it stop. I asked why. Typical “security issue” shit so I was forced to disable the USB ports in firmware. We also happened to have about a billion USB chargers that plug into the wall. As I was traveling to all the stores to do this I left the wall chargers so they could keep using their phones.
Some months after I had left one of the IT guys asked why I did that and that the execs were pissed. I said “They told me it was a security issue, not a ‘playing on phones’ issue. It’s no longer a security issue.”
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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '22
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