Re: Time management

Laurent Bossavit wrote:


> Bill:
>
> > Perhaps you meant to ask / learn ...
>
> OK, let's phrase it that way. I sense a lot of passion in this topic,
> which tells me it is one that will elicit fruitful conflict. I sense
> that I'm going to be the sand in the oyster with this one, so let me
> state beforehand that any criticism of a person's opinions that I
> might offer is not intended as a criticism of the person.
>
> Now, to my way of seeing, free time - time with the family, time to
> read, time to have fun, time to see people who call me up and suggest
> lunch - is a key part of becoming a better programmer. As a
> programmer the "people systems" I deal with are typically small, from
> one to a few people.
>
> I would assume that a person dealing with more complex people systems
> (such as that 4000 person company) need *more*, not less, free time
> to recharge. I would assume that at higher levels of pay and
> responsibility, one has to invest *more*, not less, time in learning.

"Needs" is not the same as "gets."  Each of us has planned-for deliverables.
My experience is that it's fairly typical that the planned-for deliverables
are accomplishable within an 8 hour day.  The difference between my day as a
technical person and my day as a manager has primarily been the time it
takes to handle things that are not planned-for.  It's not been possible, in
my experience, to predict the personal and interpersonal problems I had to
deal with.  It's not been possible to predict the number or severity of
fires I would have to fight.  These are things that it has been my
responsiblity to handle, and which took away from the free time that would
have otherwise been available for recharging.  It's been both my experience
and observation that the higher up you go in an organization, the larger the
number and the larger the severity of those things.  In addition, once you
reach a certain level, you begin to have to deal with a whole other set of
sources; those external to the organization.  My experience, at IBM, Compaq,
and AMR, has been a very close match to Glen's.  There was a very direct
relationship between a person's level and the amount of time they had to
devote to work to accomplish their responsibilities.  It appears to me that
one of the determining factors in achieving higher positions in large
corporations is a willingness to subjugate ones personal needs to the needs
of the organization.  I'm not saying it's smart, right, etc.  Just that
these are my experiences and that those seem to be the rules by which large
U.S. corporations operate.

[snip]

> Please tell me more about these discrepancies.

Don't know if that was any use to you.  Hope so.  It's not about accepting.
Just understanding.

Bill


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