Manager's Schedule vs. Maker's Schedule 274
theodp writes "Ever wonder why you and the boss don't see eye-to-eye on the importance of meetings? Paul Graham explains that there are Maker Schedules (coder) and Manager Schedules (PHB), and the two are very different. With each day neatly cut into one-hour intervals, the Manager Schedule is for bosses and is tailor-made for schmoozing. Unfortunately, it spells disaster for people who make things, like programmers and writers, who generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour, says Graham, since that's barely enough time to get started. So if you fall into the Maker camp, adds Graham, you better hope your boss is smart enough to recognize that you need long chunks of time to work in. How's that working out in your world?" Ironically enough, I have a meeting to attend in three minutes.
Ironic? (Score:5, Informative)
That's not ironic, that's just coincidental!
And that was pedantic.
Moderation (Score:1, Informative)
Anyone else notice that the first 10 or 15 comments to this story all got 'troll' mods, regardless of content? Weird.
Re:What is it with meetings? (Score:3, Informative)
As an example my boss has meetings nearly every day, some all day meetings. She rarely comes back and talks about what was mentioned in the meetings but none of it is ever useful or changes things for the better. This has gone on for almost 8 years now.
Ive been to a few of those meetings as well and more then half of the meeting is the women talking about their family, some other pointless crap or kissing the ass of the higher up boss. The other half is them asking what did we do last meeting and asking questions that should be answered but never do because "Ill have to check on that" is the typical response. The meetings are nothing more then a waste of time.
I pretty much govern myself except when my boss feels the need to make herself look good and rushes me through a project just so she can brag about how quickly something was done...
Maybe its because I work in higher education or because 75% of the management here are women who would rather play social games with each other.
Re:Meeting? (Score:4, Informative)
I hate starting down a good thread then
having the text start doing something
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This has been my experience... (Score:3, Informative)
...in transitioning from systems & coding to PHB: I now have to keep a schedule with the rest of the world. I used to be able to come in at 11AM or Noon, leave at 3, come back at 6 and work till midnight if I wanted. If I wanted to see a movie at 2PM on a tuesday afternoon, I went to the movie. But our entire development team in that time consisted of me, myself, and I. Now I have 2 full-time developers and 2 more contract developers that I have to coordinate with. I still have some flexibly, but generally I need to be in the office by 9 or 10AM to answer emails and to go through the support tickets, assign tasks, etc.. The coders usually show up sometime between 11AM and 1PM and then work for a couple hours, head home, then do their real work usually between 10PM - 4AM. The time they are in the office is usually spent asking questions, or we're doing testing to see if things work in the production mock up.
I don't care when or how the work gets done, just so long as assigned tasks get finished in a reasonable amount of time. And if they are having problems, let me know. Other than that, our developers have a free hand.
I don't get to schoomze. That's the other co-founder and CEO's job. Granted he owns another business that is the primary source of his income and that takes a lot of his time. We generally meet 3 hours a week total, make sure we're on the same page, and he does the sales negotiations with clients and corporate paperwork (like payroll and taxes). Meanwhile I have the title of COO and over see the day to day operations of the company.