

Today is Goof Off at Work Day - MarlonPro
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/08/today-is-goof-off-at-work-day.html

======
Ygor
Can anybody confirm if the 20% in google still stands?

And, if it does, is it really 20% of the regular work hours? In my experience,
20% usually comes to something like: "Work on the important project 100% of
the work week. After that, work 20% more on something you like."

Everybody I know that works in Google, works far more than the standard 40h
per week. Even if you cut of 20% of that time, they still work more than
usual. Ofc, that doesn't mean it is generally the case, that's why I'm asking.

~~~
michaelochurch
It depends on your manager. Despite Google's claims of being post-managerial
and peer-driven, the truth is that your manager has free rein to ass-rape you
if he perceives you as being distracted by your 20% project. That's because
your actual progress requires both good peer reviews _and_ good "calibration
scores"-- which are quarterly, manager-assigned, and secret. (Managers aren't
supposed to tell employees their scores aside from a 0.5-point interval on a
scale where that's a huge range, and people have gotten in hot water for
asking or trying to bargain.)

Since you have to pass two (sometimes) conflicting tests, you get the worst of
both systems. You get old-school managerial abuse _and_ the careerist
jockeying for visibility that occurs when large companies attempt to be "peer-
driven". Instead of offering two paths to success, Google offers two
orthogonal roadblocks, both of which must be overcome.

20% time is alive and well _if_ you have a supportive (i.e. good) manager. If
you have a typical manager, you can probably get away with 20%T as long as
it's not obvious. If you have an evil manager, then watch the fuck out.
There's a 5% cutoff for PIPs (the bureaucratic humiliation derived from the
principle that it's better to keep a fired employee around for 2 months
pissing all over morale than to cut a severance check) and having a 20%T
project is an easy way to end up on the hitlist.

The danger of 20% time at a place like Google is that (a) the best work is
awesome, but most of the work isn't very interesting, so (b) pretty much
everyone is trying to get on a better project (and starts campaigning from
about the 7th week) and (c) managers know this and don't like people who make
it obvious. 20-percenters are either trying to transfer (that's the best use
of 20%T) or to start something up within Google (which expresses the same
flight risk, but is far less likely to work). So if a manager has to throw
someone under the bus because a team is underperforming and doesn't have
enough "calibration" points, 20-percenters (flight risks) are the first ones
to go.

~~~
yuhong
On Pref, from [http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/05/promotion-systems-
redux.htm...](http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/05/promotion-systems-redux.html) :
“In any case, I think it’s very healthy for Google to have an internal
discussion about this. But do I expect the system to change? No. The super-
star rule I referred to in that previous post would prevent that. I did have a
discussion with a VP about this. He told me that when he first joined Google,
he tried to change the promotion criteria to better formally recognize
leadership, mentoring, and the importance of spreading knowledge (technical or
otherwise) throughout the organization. The result? A bunch of very senior
engineers (who had all benefited under the current regime, and were
understandably worried about their career prospects under a different system)
shouted him down.” How would you suggest solving this problem?

~~~
MaysonL
_How would you suggest solving this problem?_

Fire Larry Page. [i.e., it ain't gonna happen]

~~~
yuhong
What is the problem with Larry Page that require him to go?

~~~
michaelochurch
I'm agnostic on whether Page is really responsible in any way for Google's
decline. I joined after he stepped in. I don't know anything about Page, but
he seems to be a bad judge of character because of some of the things he has
allowed and some policies he's supported.

What happened post-Schmidt wasn't directly Page's fault, so much as a lot of
the other executives were waiting in the wings with shitty ideas that they now
saw a chance to push through. Execs will attempt that any time there's a guard
change, and I can't say that Page did a worse job of handling it than I would
have done.

I asked a successful business owner what the hardest thing was about being CEO
and he said (paraphrased) that "The job is easy, in that you have the power to
have work done, but the hard part is that everyone is fucking lying to you." I
don't think Page is a good judge of when people are lying to him.

I don't think any of Google's triumvirate (Page, Brin, Schmidt) are bad men. I
think they're very good men who built an admirable company and kept it intact
for a long time. I think they lack something in the ability to judge character
(mea culpa: so do I; I tend to be too trusting of individuals despite my
intellectual cynicism) which is why a lot of the middle managers and
executives are problematic.

Then again, 90% of the cultural rot occurred before Page. Google's hideous
"calibration score" system wasn't built in a day.

~~~
yuhong
Yea, that is why I ask questions like what would you suggest to the Google
founders.

~~~
michaelochurch
Bring me on as a consultant. I could have saved Google+ Games; the
documentation is probably still there.

------
DigitalSea
I wish more places operated like this here in Australia. Sadly the consensus
at every single company I've ever worked for is if you don't have an IDE,
debugger or textpad instance open on your screen you're slacking off. You
don't succeed in business by burning out the talent that drives your company,
you nurture it and if 20% of spare time yields you no result 80% of the time
you'll be getting better output from your team because they're focused.

~~~
rimantas

      —What are you doing there?
      —Thinking.
      —Can't you think at home?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
\--I never had you down as so progressive, sure I'll work from home the rest
of the week, here's my number ...

------
zwieback
I've worked for HP (one of the examples in the article) since 1999 and even
back then the free-time thing has been talked about as something from the "old
days" when the HP way was still intact. I also did a stint at HP labs in 1988
and back then I remember my mentor showing me labstock and he told me that if
I needed any stuff for a side project, even outside of work, I could use what
was there. However, I never witnessed anyone taking advantage of that, people
were way too busy on their main projects and had other hobbies outside of work
(not many PCs and no internet back then).

On the other hand I'm extrememly fortunate that I've always worked on projects
where 80% of the time felt like working on my favorite hobby - building
prototypes, coding, working with other HP sites across the globe.

I think if I had to look for 20% of "fun" time I'd surely look for a different
job. I think a better strategy for large companies would be to get your
employees to spend 20% on learning new stuff and I'm not talking about online
classes or touchy-feely offsites.

------
mindcrime
He didn't - IIRC - talk about "20% time" specifically, but Tom DeMarco wrote a
whole book about the importance of "slack" time at work. One point he makes is
that if everyone is too busy doing the routine stuff 100% of the time, then
the firm can't adapt quickly, because nobody has time to learn anything new,
do exploratory / speculative work, etc.

His book _Slack_ is a fascinating read, and I'd recommend it to any HN'er who
hasn't read it yet:

[http://www.amazon.com/Slack-Getting-Burnout-Busywork-
Efficie...](http://www.amazon.com/Slack-Getting-Burnout-Busywork-
Efficiency/dp/0767907698)

~~~
codinghorror
damn, I totally should have mentioned that in the post. I'll add it via an
edit.

------
coffeeaddicted
I'm doing this as well as freelancer. Mostly I work on an opensource project
that day, sometimes I use it for learning something new. Reason I started this
was that I do not have the energy to do such things on the weekend (otherwise
I'm constantly tired at work) and I still did want some productive spare-time.
Unfortunately as freelancer this means 20% less pay (at least in the short
run) and you need a client allowing for that, but after doing that for more
than year now I still feel it's worth it.

------
niels_olson
Brief report of the work rules I have had:

\- On this ships, we had to be in for Officer's call at 0700, then Quarters at
0730 to deliver the plan to the troops, but from there it was off to the
races. Leave when done. Manpower studies said my job in port was 69 hours a
week. Underway? Add 12 hours of watch daily.

\- When I checked in on staff at the Academy, I was told "I don't care what
you're schedule is, just get the work done." I was in the office from 7:30 to
5:30, but often did homework before heading to night school.

\- Medical school. No rules, no assigned work. Pass the tests.

\- Internship: Only 80 hours a week, but every second was accounted for and
usually assumed you were wearing running shoes.

\- Current job: doing QA on Navy corpsmen trained to something between an EMT
and a nurse, assigned to small ships (300-400 mostly young healthy people).
show up by 8, see clinic, get the work done.

\- Pathology residency (next job, knock on wood): have to get to work by 0645
because that's when parking fills up. People are usually around until 5. Get
the work done. Side projects are required to graduate.

------
alanfalcon
On my team at Blizzard we really did have "good off" time, in that it was
dedicated to playing games. Any games: mobile games, the latest Call of Duty,
classic Nintendo games on the 50" TV behind the bar in the break room, pool,
volleyball. It amounted to more like 4% time than 20% time, but still, there
was no expectation of people coming up with new products as a result of it. I
do wonder of it was seen as an additional motivator to ensure people were
getting their work completed on time and without needing to stay late working
overtime... But I think it was probably just what it seemed like: a fun perk.

------
rickmb
In my experience, all these formal 20% things are just too artificial, and
usually just marketing. The only important thing (but also the most
challenging) is to ensure that there is enough slack in the schedule.

If you can manage that, well, you've got a bunch of hackers with some
hardware, an internet connection and time on their hands. The rest will pretty
much sort itself out.

------
michaelochurch
I wish that 20%-time policies worked, but they don't.

I think they're actually quite bad for morale in the long run. Why? People who
have good rapport with their managers and are implicitly trusted will graduate
to self-directed work within less than a year and be full-fledged
"intrapreneurs" (i.e. have most of the autonomy that a startup founder would
have, if not the same upside) within 2 or 3. You don't need a 20%-time policy
to back that up. It naturally happens. So 20%-time policies exist to set a
_minimum_ on the allowance for self-directed work, but here's the problem:
people who don't win the implicit trust of their managers get pissed off and
disgusted-- regardless of whether they're working 32 or 40 or 50 hours per
week-- and no side project can fix that: the only solution is for the employee
to transfer before he burns out and gets fired.

A 20%-time policy dangles a carrot. It reminds the people who don't have
autonomy and implicit trust of what their work lives would be like if they had
better managers.

20%-time often becomes a negative space and a justification for reducing
employee autonomy during the other 80%. You want to mentor interns? Maintain a
legacy module you depend on? Work on a cross-hierarchical project (from a
cynical manager's PoV, this looks like a careerist attempt to become a
"socialite" within the company rather than remaining under one thumb)? That's
what 20% time is for.

Also, 20% time might have been a real benefit in 1975 when average people
didn't have access to a computer, but in 2012, most people would be happier
just taking a day off to work on a side project. If you get fired or quit, you
still have your side projects, but your 20%-time project ends up in /dev/null.

Finally, here's a dirty secret about what has happened in the professions.
Until about 1980, it was typically understood that metered work (i.e. what
your boss is directly asking you do to) expectations in the professions would
be about 20 to 25 hours per week. A boss who asked for more than that, except
with an aggressive once-in-a-career type deadline, was setting an unreasonable
expectation. The other 20-25 hours were to be spent on off-meter work, such as
networking, continued education, and research-oriented side projects that
might not work out but would teach something in the process, all of which were
intended to keep the professional current and improve his or her long-term
career. After the slow-motion terrorist attack that was the Reagan era and
aggressive corporate cost-cutting, that devolved. The new expectation, after
that, became 40+ hours of _metered_ work, and any off-meter work was to happen
on your own time. (The consequence of this is that most professionals don't
learn much and are replaced by younger versions of themselves when they burn
out.) So "20% time" is just a ghost to remind us of what things were like back
when the professions really were professions.

~~~
makmanalp
> Until about 1980, it was typically understood that metered work (i.e. what
> your boss is directly asking you do to) expectations in the professions
> would be about 20 to 25 hours per week.

I would _love_ to read more about this, if you have any links or such.

~~~
purephase
I second this. Sounds like it might be a bit too good to be true.

~~~
michaelochurch
"Too good" to be true is a bit of a stretch, because it wasn't all good. The
professions in that day were ethnically exclusive, connections driven, and the
everyday work was generally pretty dull. Also, getting fired seriously fucked
up your life and reputation (rather than being the mild annoyance it is today,
for a skilled software engineer) and so offices tended to be a lot more
authoritarian. Watch _Mad Men_ to get a sense of it. Sticking around the
office till 6:30 meant you were a hard worker, but it wasn't all pleasant, and
for a lot of people who, by all rights, would deserve the chance to get in,
couldn't.

However, the professions did expect people to dedicate half their time to off-
meter work, and were more reasonable about allowing people to do that and have
40-50 hour work weeks. That aspect of it is true. This doesn't mean that you
could work only 20 hours per week if you decided off-meter work wasn't your
thing. It does mean that you had the autonomy of an actual professional.

------
lloeki
Relevant TED talk: <http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html>

------
cpenner461
Lots of comments on the effectiveness of a 20% policy - I'm curious what other
folks experience is like with an internal hack day? It seems that if a
company's culture isn't suitable for 20% time (for whatever reason), that an
internal hack day might be a useful alternative (scratching developer itches
but not "wasting" 20% of developer time on non-core projects). Any
insight/recommendations from anyone who's done this?

~~~
jonstjohn
We do an internal hack day modeled after Atlassian ShipIt (or as they called
it and we do 'Fedex Day'). We've only had two since we started (year and a
half) but aim to have one per quarter or every other quarter.

In our experience, they were a major boost to morale and some really
interesting ideas came out of them, several of which have been implemented
fully in our core products.

I'm a big advocate for these. We couldn't really pull off 20% but giving
developers opportunities to work on their ideas within the company is really
important.

------
cletus
Reading some of the comments on this thread and others about Google
(disclaimer: I work for Google), I feel it necessary to point out that much of
the time when people criticise Google that:

1\. They're pushing their own agenda;

2\. Such comments are typically one-sided Google can't or won't comment; and

3\. That observation or opinion is often selective, misrepresentative, biased
or a combination thereof.

So the next time you read a post about, oh I don't know, how someone's Adwords
account was unfairly banned for no good reason and you see that the person
claiming such just so happens to sell Valentine's Day gifts and it's the week
of Valentine's Day then maybe just maybe that post is a misrepresentative PR
stunt.

Likewise if you see people who worked for Google for a matter of months
posting on every Google-related thread as some kind of self-proclaimed expert
you should realize that they're pushing a particular viewpoint that paints the
company in a worse light and them in a better light.

Chances are it didn't work out for them. Perhaps they have legitimate gripes.
Perhaps they just didn't fit in. Maybe they even self-destructed and burned
all their bridges. Whatever the case, their accounts of Google should at least
be viewed skeptically.

So please apply some filters to such comments like:

\- does this person know what they're talking about?

\- what agenda are they pushing?

Now I'm no expert on Google (having worked here <2 years now) but let me give
you my observations.

20% does still exist although from what I gather the nature of it has changed
somewhat. It's probably fair to say that 20% time is less used now and when it
is it's more for trying out or auditioning for a new team.

Personally I find it difficult to split my focus this way. This kind of
compartmentalization is not my strong suit. I have the same issue with
personal projects. When not at work I'll often think about work anyway. YMMV.

That all being said, I know of recent examples of people doing 20% time and I
know of some cases where those 20% ideas turned into 100% time (if you will)
on something new.

As far as daydreaming and other "lateral thinking" time goes, I'd say Google
is by far the most accepting of this than any other company I personally have
worked for. There are massage chairs, pool tables, tennis tables, consoles,
etc around and people use them. They're not just decorative.

Google also as far as I've seen tolerates failure. I mean don't get me wrong,
you're still better off succeeding than failing :) but you won't get fired if
your project fails.

As far as individual experimentation goes I'll say this: Google is an example
of something that I believe holds true for life in general: you get out of it
as much as you put in. This goes to the "individual experimentation" point. If
you want to check out someone else's code, fix or add something and raise a CL
for it you can. The other side will need to accept it of course. If you just
want to dick around with something you can do that too.

~~~
gwillen
I worked at Google for four years, so I think I can speak with a bit more
authority than the 'matter of month'ers you criticize, when I say:

Yes, some of the criticisms, especially those by outsiders with clear agendas,
are overblown. That said, a lot of them are very real. Most of the Google
employees who openly criticize the company were there for a lot more than
'months' (and I'm pretty sure I know who you're targeting with that epithet.)

I would say that one can build a somewhat realistic picture of the environment
inside the company from the postings of ex-employees on HN. It's a lagging
indicator, obviously. But the complaints aren't made up.

As for 20% time itself: it's always been somewhere between fiction and fact,
in the sense that, in practice, you had to be very assertive or have a very
supportive manager to use it, and you were generally cutting into your
performance review scores by not using that time on your main project. My
understanding now is that it's more or less officially dead, but that
postdates my tenure at the company, so I can't confirm it.

------
aufreak3
The other part of making the "20% time" idea work I suppose is the ability of
a company to rally behind what shows potential.

~~~
Cyranix
In two places that I've worked, the pendulum swung quite far in the other
direction -- 20% time was instituted because the people whose roles involved
creating a product vision (business development, management, etc.) were unable
to introduce successful changes. Not only would the company leadership rally
behind any promising output from 20% time, they were practically counting on
it, putting additional responsibility on the developers without any additional
reward -- and naturally, the stagnant creative/leadership roles would subsume
a successful project.

To any managers/leaders out there thinking of instituting 20% time: please,
please don't do it if it's a last-ditch effort to innovate. Your employees may
put up with it if they value job security, but they can tell that the
resulting power dynamics within the organization are unfavorable to them.

------
dromidas
We have something similar at Microsoft... but only on the SQL team. It's
called 'No Meeting Wednesdays', while it's not really a goof off day, it does
let you focus entirely on whatever you want to focus on for an entire
(relatively) uninterrupted day.

------
Nursie
Great idea in principle. In practice there's always too much to do to respect
this in a lot of places, even where it's nominally part of operating policy.

~~~
michaelochurch
_In practice there's always too much to do to respect this in a lot of places,
even where it's nominally part of operating policy._

That's not the problem. Most companies operate at about 30 to 40 percent
efficiency. That's not to say that most workers could achieve as much working
2/5 as much, because a lot of the inefficiency is structural and intrinsic,
but the idea that long hours and high managerial demands come from "too much
to do" rather than deep structural problems with the modern corporation is
hogwash.

------
hxf148
Rackspace is making it easy for me right now..

Ironically I suppose, it's the first outage I've had with them while actively
working in a long time.

------
shutton
Thought this was going to be about watching the London Olympics at your desk!

~~~
nicholassmith
I sat and watched the mens time trials yesterday whilst working, the
commentary seemed to help my brain focus on doing a really, really tedious
task and I got it done without messing round on the internet and taking twice
as long.

~~~
aerique
I _need_ music when doing a tedious task at work, otherwise I get distracted
too easily.

~~~
MaysonL
I'm taking a few CS courses online, and find that I have to play solitaire
while listening to them (usually at overspeed) to keep from zoning out.

