Do this at your own peril. The most important part of your job as an engineer is politics, not engineering. You might think that blocking out pointless meetings and other useless distractions will help you to focus on actual engineering. What you'll find is that within mere weeks, others are taking credit for your work. Before you know it, you will be sidelined and marginalized, and no meaningful work will be assigned to you. Never turn your back to your coworkers.
Where do you work that you have to constantly fight off others from backstabbing you? That sounds like a really, really stressful and unhealthly work environment.
Not GP but I've had 5 jobs since coming to SF in 2014; walked off the last 2 within months. I was innocent and naive when I arrived, now I see how my late brother receeded to him bedroom for the final years of his life. People are horrible when they can get away with it. You can bet job quality goes down with each notch. When I was at the top I told him to smile and try harder. Back stabbing is fine, at least you feel that one and it ends. Once you're down the spiral I don't know how to get up, but you're blessed to not understand.
The most important part of your job as an engineer is politics, not engineering
God, no. Politics is a necessary evil, sometimes.
You might think that blocking out pointless meetings and other useless distractions will help you to focus on actual engineering
This is entirely true.
What you'll find is that within mere weeks, others are taking credit for your work
What kind of organization are you working for, that allows this? In any case, using slack won't prevent anyone who truly, inappropriately wants to take credit from doing so.
Soon enough, you will be sidelined and marginalized, and no meaningful work will be assigned to you
This is only if your skillset is not relevant enough.
Never turn your back to your coworkers.
How do you go from not wanting to use slack to that? There are other means of communicating with your coworkers. Email is still superior for anything relevant.
I mentioned this right above but I absolutely agree. The only solution right now is to go along with it and actively participate in all the chats so you don't get alienated. Basically you MUST play politics.
And I think this is the core of the problem. Office politics is BAD. And wasting time chatting and sharing GIFS all day instead of working is BAD.
An ideal tool for the workplace should minimize office politics, not create more. Also it shouldn't distract people into "Slack"ing off. An organization that incentivizes developers who play politics instead of doing good work is not a great workplace.
wasting time chatting and sharing GIFS all day instead of working is BAD... An organization that incentivizes developers who play politics instead of doing good work is not a great workplace.
Precisely - it is management's responsibility to foster an environment in which work gets done. If "fun" channels are really that busy then management needs to wonder whether people either aren't getting their work done or whether they're not being assigned enough work in the first place.
Basically you MUST play politics.
Well... That's not necessarily a bad thing. Every organization has politics. Having people pay attention to their coworkers and their interests is a requirement of empathetic and successfully cooperative organizations. But it's management's responsibility to ensure that politics has its dedicated place, where all voices are encouraged and heard equally, and remains healthy (no back-stabbing), without politics becoming all-consuming and preventing real work from getting done.
Comments
Do this at your own peril. The most important part of your job as an engineer is politics, not engineering. You might think that blocking out pointless meetings and other useless distractions will help you to focus on actual engineering. What you'll find is that within mere weeks, others are taking credit for your work. Before you know it, you will be sidelined and marginalized, and no meaningful work will be assigned to you. Never turn your back to your coworkers.
Where do you work that you have to constantly fight off others from backstabbing you? That sounds like a really, really stressful and unhealthly work environment.
Not GP but I've had 5 jobs since coming to SF in 2014; walked off the last 2 within months. I was innocent and naive when I arrived, now I see how my late brother receeded to him bedroom for the final years of his life. People are horrible when they can get away with it. You can bet job quality goes down with each notch. When I was at the top I told him to smile and try harder. Back stabbing is fine, at least you feel that one and it ends. Once you're down the spiral I don't know how to get up, but you're blessed to not understand.
It doesn't require a want to backstab, just incentive to get ahead.
The most important part of your job as an engineer is politics, not engineering
God, no. Politics is a necessary evil, sometimes.
You might think that blocking out pointless meetings and other useless distractions will help you to focus on actual engineering
This is entirely true.
What you'll find is that within mere weeks, others are taking credit for your work
What kind of organization are you working for, that allows this? In any case, using slack won't prevent anyone who truly, inappropriately wants to take credit from doing so.
Soon enough, you will be sidelined and marginalized, and no meaningful work will be assigned to you
This is only if your skillset is not relevant enough.
Never turn your back to your coworkers.
How do you go from not wanting to use slack to that? There are other means of communicating with your coworkers. Email is still superior for anything relevant.
I mentioned this right above but I absolutely agree. The only solution right now is to go along with it and actively participate in all the chats so you don't get alienated. Basically you MUST play politics.
And I think this is the core of the problem. Office politics is BAD. And wasting time chatting and sharing GIFS all day instead of working is BAD.
An ideal tool for the workplace should minimize office politics, not create more. Also it shouldn't distract people into "Slack"ing off. An organization that incentivizes developers who play politics instead of doing good work is not a great workplace.
Precisely - it is management's responsibility to foster an environment in which work gets done. If "fun" channels are really that busy then management needs to wonder whether people either aren't getting their work done or whether they're not being assigned enough work in the first place.
Well... That's not necessarily a bad thing. Every organization has politics. Having people pay attention to their coworkers and their interests is a requirement of empathetic and successfully cooperative organizations. But it's management's responsibility to ensure that politics has its dedicated place, where all voices are encouraged and heard equally, and remains healthy (no back-stabbing), without politics becoming all-consuming and preventing real work from getting done.
Do you realize that when you get a sufficiently large or diverse group of people together there will invariably be politics?
Even within a family or group of friends there are politics in people promoting their own interests or vying for affection/time of others.
This is not an inherent flaw in the system. This is how the system was designed to work.
I don't know man that sounds kind of depressing. I think such behaviour is not very common.