However I don’t believe in avoiding saying what is blatantly obvious when others tend to want to shy away from it as it may land them in trouble.

Some people need motivation, others need a slap. I’m only talking about those who need a slap all throughout this article and comments.

The smaller agencies out there that enjoy this culture tend to be lifestyle businesses, run by people who don’t particularly want to grow to 50-100+ people – and that’s cool. But for those who do want to, and manage to, grow to these sizes, it’s much harder to maintain the culture you describe.

Having worked in both these small agencies, bigger ones and worked with many of the better known London agencies, I can’t honestly say I’ve come across many over 50 people in size that pull this off, a shame, but reality.

I’ve come across many that want to appear this way to the outside world and do so on their website, social media efforts and office environment – but all too often it tends to be nothing more than a veneer.

And of course, if a culture like this is championed by people who clearly don’t believe in it, I’ve no doubt it would die a death – very ‘Dad dancing at a wedding-esque’. Likewise, trying to champion this culture in a workplace that isn’t really up for it will actually be counter-productive as it makes false promises to employees and regularly breaks them.

Better to just be flat out honest about how a company needs to be / how it’s run and hire people who are happy with that situation.

I work with many who aren’t the greatest self-organisers but have a great attitude and work ethic. If there’s a motivational issue with someone who has a good attitude, then they’ll try and fix it – rather than not try and just let their team mates down by slacking.

As far as my personal situation, again I can completely see where you’re coming from on this but it really isn’t anything about this – I’m genuinely not money motivated, especially to the point where I’d feel bitter about it, I don’t even give a seconds thought to what anyone else is earning UNLESS they’re taking the piss, then it bothers me, but not because they might be on more than me, but because I feel like they’re conning the company they work for, and by default also their colleagues who aren’t piss takers.

To clarify the term “piss takers” in the context of this article, it’s people who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time ‘taking breaks that developers need to’ and then constantly complain about not having enough time. It’s people who seem more passionate about this than actually completing parts of the job, it’s people who believe this is their God given right as a developer, rather than a luxury.

No Web Project Manager in the world woud complain about a team member who continuously hit their deadlines. I’ve worked with many who seem to spend just as long on non-work related activities at work, but who rarely bitched about things and who’s quality of work always seemed to be a little better than their counterparts – I have no problem with these people, these people are not piss takers.

Oz’s response would be quite a common one I think in smaller agencies and they’ll be as many advocates of this as there are people who disagree. However the larger a company goes the harder I believe this is to maintain in most cases. Of course there are some larger ones they appear to maintain this culture without affecting productivity, but these do unfortunately seem to be exceptions to the rule.

To be quite honest, this whole post is just as relevant to any workforce out there as in all companies you’ll get people with great attitudes and people with not so great i.e. they’ll always be piss takers.

The main driver for this article was that piss takers in other industries usually know they’re taking the piss as they know, as do their colleagues, when they’re avoiding work.

However our industry seems unique in that what would be seen as piss taking in those e.g. reading blogs, Twitter, watching videos etc. is seen as an accepted thing, almost a right i.e. if I can’t read blogs, watch videos etc. then there is no way I can be expected to be happy and productive.

Having worked in and with places where both cultures are followed – corporate and hippy – I have only see a difference in quality output and general morale. In my experience the less hippy a company, the higher the quality levels and more mature-minded developers.

Of course this is only my experiences and thus subjective and not huge compared to us as a collective, but hence the post, I just wanted to offer my thoughts and get some responses that would either confirm how I felt or educate me a little.

They tried. They replaced some of the equipment and tried to “be cool” but didn’t work. I think people saw it as them trying to hard when they really didn’t believe in the culture.

The hard bit is usually being given the freedom and trust to adopt such things, when commercial, financial and cultural advantages are plain to see it normally resonates with any management team as a positive and something to keep going.

Initially the rest of the management team had some reservations but soon loved the reaction that we got from visitors who LOVED the culture. I’d even get asked to “make sure there’s a movie on” when visitors came over.

We encouraged Social Media usage (mainly Twitter) and even had 10-20% time per week for R&D.

Before I joined my team was demotivated, the department making a loss and was being supported by the design and print side of the business.

In the two years we had this culture place we achieved profitability in the department, our productivity actually went UP, quality improved and I had a highly motivated team who worked beyond 9-5.

Sadly most of the kit was mine so when I left I took that with me and the company soon resorted to their old ways.

Within 6 months business was drying up, quality was getting worse, 75% of their team left and they’ve moved away from web and back to print and design.

Just one side of the coin.

As I mentioned in the post, I’ve now worked for companies where it was both tolerated and frowned upon and I do agree that where it was frowned upon there did seem to be a lot more focus.

However I believe this is how it always was at the places where this was the case and so there was no need for the cultural shift and inevitable grumblings.

Managing a change like that, especially in a larger company, sure would be a challenge and no doubt result in a tide of mutiny and rebellion from a certain section of the workforce – I sure would be fascinated to read more about how companies manage this!

The guys are free to look at what they want on lunch and after hours, but work time is for work. It was a controversial step to begin with but looking back it’s been really good. The team are not distracted by outside influences and can really focus on their work.

I think if your working on something challenging and interesting there should be little need to spread your attention across so many social platforms as well.

I think it can be a shock to new starters but they soon get into the swing of things and I truly believe we see better results as a consequence of this policy.

It’s better to remain focused and go home on time to our families, than loose 2 hours grazing the web and have to work late???

The truth is I’ve never worked at either and all I do is read from their PR-oriented blogs how amazing it is to work at such places, however I also read many articles of why people leave both of these companies citing how much they hated it etc.

I’ve never worked at either but I do often wonder how much the image portrayed by companies like this matches the day-to-day reality. Maybe they really are nirvana, but maybe not.

My only personal experience is when I used to visit Nokia HQ in Finland and to the causal visitor it looked like a Facebook or Google. The offices were lovely, there was massive food courts with food from all over the world every day, snack bars, funky chairs, people working in flip flops and sandals in every corner of every specifically designed curvy nook and cranny of the building – I admit it, I thought it was amazing.

What I soon learnt though was that they work bloody hard, and I’m not just talking between 9 – 6pm, I’m talking about 8 – 10pm every single day. It got me thinking about impressions from the outside compared to the reality of job in these places. Note, while in Finland I was one of these people working late everyday with the locals and the novelty of the ‘cool’ office wasn’t so appealing as my eyeballs were falling out their sockets as I tried to keep up with the locals.

To connect their success to this culture however I think is a little naive and a hell of a lot more goes into making such successful companies.

However I can’t argue you point about if you want the very best to work at your comopany then you must cater for these people as individuals, I completely agree with that. But I personally feel there are an awful lot of people out there that THINK they’re one of these superstars and deserve this treatment when in fact they’re not – and that is the problem…

If you’re THAT good, I would bet people in most companies DO treat you differently. I bet someone considered to be a great asset to the company won’t get as much crap about turning up 10mins late as opposed to someone who is considered to be less on an asset, the same goes for Twitter breaks etc.

The point is that amazing talent alone doesn’t make someone a great asset, amazing talent with the right attitude does.

You could have the greatest coder in the world working for you, but if if the downside to this is that he walks around like a diva, complains regularly, de-motivates others and affects other’s attitudes in a negative way – then that person is NOT a great asset to your company in my opinion.

If work’s getting completed constantly on time and to great quality standards then who could complain?

Perhaps a CEO, who’s job it is to concern themselves with cash flow and growth and to some extent it is their job to do the math on if all the time spent on non-work related activities, if minimised, could get products shipped sooner, hire another full-time person etc. all geared towards generating more revenue and profit – it sounds cold, corporate and cut throat, but that is a CEO’s job.

Of course another key factor in success if quality staff attraction and retention, and it’s possible that being too focussed on the above and caring little for the human side will adversely affect revenue, growth and so on – so it’s about balance – and this is really what my post is about…

It’s not aimed at those who manage to balance their workload, but more those who quite clearly don’t and regularly deliver late or with poor quality but then cite reasons other than the true reasons as to why. It’s aimed at the piss takers who abuse the culture they’re lucky enough to work in when so many do work on actual factory floors.

Trust works both ways… if the piss takers take the piss to much, my trust in them doing the best work they can vanishes.

As for smokers, I’ answered that point in my response to Charlie above.

I can only assume you’re making the the point, in your very cryptic and poetic way, that my seemingly hard-ass approach will turn all teams into robots and eventually agencies will become nothing more than factories of mindless drones.

I guess that would end up the case if all bosses took inspiration from Fredrick, but that’s not what I’d want really.

A little melodramatic perhaps but it’s similar to other feedback I had on Twitter to this post. But I think it’s a little bit of a weak ‘hippy’ argument and if everyone thought like that then little work would get done, and those that use it with not much else tend to be the ones that others view as slackers – usually highly talented, but a little diva-like and full of themself.

Bit of a stereotype but just a trend I’ve personally noticed…

I do smoke, and as I say take 2-3 breaks a day for this. While I think this is ok because I do work very hard and don’t take the piss, however there are many out there who are more addicted than me and take a lot more breaks a day – and it annoys people just the same as the topic of my post does me.

But really my argument is more based around those hwo have Twitter open all day long and click through to blogs, videos, pictures (or whatever) as soon as they see them, rather than waiting for a natural break in work.

Those that wait for the natural break, genuinely take 5mins to scan through the latest Tweets, Instapaper / Read Later, favourite anything that looks interesting for later reading – I think this is a reasonable way to conduct oneself – and this is generally when smokers go for their breaks.

But I take the same view on both the piss takers on Twitter and smokers who are clearly abusing the number of breaks per day – one reply on Twitter I had about this basically said it’s about common sense. So really my rant is about when anyone steps over the mark and needs a word in their ear.

Thinking about your first point, I’m actually the same. If I’m not enjoying the task I’m on at home I’ll procrastinate like a mofo and end up Facebook stalking. In the same sceanrio at work I’ll decide that clearing my Inbox, or a much less important task needs my attention, when in reality it’s just avoiding the thing I’m on until I get in the zone and finish it.

Project phases… I’d not really thought about it from that angle at all, and I have to say that during launch week most people tend to be pretty focused.

Your point about developers knowing when they’re taking the piss – I think this is actually the crux of my post but something I didn’t want to make quite so obvious so as to get a few different feedback slants.

At the end of the day I am talking more about the piss takers who know they do it too much, but feel it’s some special right they have as self-proclaimed ‘ninjas’, and anyone who disagrees is simply wrong and a management whore who doesn’t understand their talents and motivations.

To some extent this is true, but then from the commercial angle they seem to not understand that side of things and anything relating to billable hours, efficiency and utilisation is just being a slave to ‘the man’ – absolute bollox of course but as we’ve discussed before, when we were production side we pretty much though the same and now realise it to have been just standard naivity about how businesses operate, survive and grow.

So yeah, it’s not something I’d want to necessarily ban, but just hopefully try and get people to be a little more mindful and mature about this particular area, and if they have a shit day, just be honest about it – we all have them and I’m willing to be much more understanding about this than if I get a list of excuses about context switching and all of the management operating poorly as reasons for low output.

Basically, to those that do it, stop taking the bloody piss!

iPlayer is a new one on me though! What were they watching?

1. Yeah, as I said in my reply to Luke above, in retrospect I think this point of mine was a little harsh. But I’m glad I made it if only to get responses like yours to ‘re-align’ my feelings on that particular thought.

2. Kind of related to the point above and so the same response really.

3. This one I still maintain my position on though. You’re right, our indystry sure is fast moving and keeping up to date is a mission in itself, but I do believe this can be done at lunch or in your own time after work. Having a sneaky peak at something brand new and cool looking at work is fine by me, but I personally have a quick scan and if it looks interesting I’ll Instapaper it and close it, then read it in my own time – this to me is what services like Instapaper are for.

Thanks for the comments!

I tried to empathise with the point of view that checking out Twitter or YouTube during a natural break in work was reasonable, and I do genuinely believe it is. My main argument was really against those who have it open constantly and click what looks like an interesting link, what seems to me, at almost any time rather than when they reach one of those breaks.

I guess the post was more aimed at those who abuse the good faith rather than those who are adult and professional about it, especially as it seems to me these are the ones that will complain more about context switching than others.

People are people, not machines. If we all did one thing all day we’d be working in a factory. As long as people don’t take the piss and meet a deadline then that should be fine and if it’s not (and I’ve worked in those environments) then I think most educated people would be looking at moving on. I once put it, in an exit interview, in terms of feeling like a cog in a conveyer belt of money with the CEO’s gapping mouth at the end of it. I currently work in an environment that allows unchecked amounts of non-work related activity. What it feels like is being treated like an adult and thusly you work like a adult; you get things done to the best of your ability in the timescales available. When that ethos breaks down, that’s when the problems arise.

On the smoking point, for me, that’s the same as social media breaks. If we go down a no social media route then this has to apply to smokers as well.

Don’t let Frederick Winslow Taylor hijack your cognitive process.

A brain is a terrible thing to waste.

Love,
WhichDokta