If you're the boss, Devon might be your worst nightmare. Software engineers typically spend their days writing code for Google's tools and products. It sounds like a lot of work, but he only works one hour a day.
Devon, pseudonym luck He says he uses it to protect his privacy and says that at the beginning of the week he writes code for “a good portion” of a given assignment before sending it to his manager. This “basically guarantees” smooth sailing for him for the rest of this week. He usually wakes up around 9am, takes a shower and makes breakfast, then works until 11am or noon, then switches to work on the startup until 9pm or 10pm (luck We reviewed time-stamped screenshots showing the scope of startup work Devon performed during his time at work. )
when luck When I spoke with Devon just after 10 a.m. Pacific Time, he admitted he hadn't opened his laptop yet. Asked if he was worried about missing messages from his manager, he said that even if he did, “it's not the end of the world. I'll just get back to you later tonight.”
By his own admission, Devon is one of the thousands of tech workers who are getting paid to do nothing. During the business boom early in the pandemic, companies like Meta, Google and Salesforce “were hiring ahead of demand,” said Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. wall street journal. This trend is known as “penning,'' in which companies looking to stock up on employees who they believe will have a long growth period make lucrative offers for unneeded roles. Many recruiters were waiting for jobs that never came. A 2021 poll on the anonymous workplace forum Blind revealed that a third of tech workers work less than half of their working hours.
This is exactly what's happening at Google, Devon says. He earns nearly $150,000 a year, according to his offer letter. luck examination. Leaders were just “buying out everyone they could to avoid going to other companies…and building products to compete with Google,” he says. When Google laid off 12,000 people in January, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the company was “hiring for an economic reality that is different from the one we face today.” The company said it would focus on hiring only for “essential roles” going forward. (Google refused Fortune's Please comment on this story. )
Now, amid a wave of layoffs and declining sales across the tech industry, many remaining employees are left with nothing to do. That freedom inspires some, like Devon, to push the envelope. “I wanted to find something that would give me more time, so I went to Google,” explains the 20-something.
In this sense, Devon is the epitome of a typical Gen Z person, doing the bare minimum at work and saving his real brain power for the things he's passionate about. In his case, that means enjoying his time off and logging legitimate eight-hour days at the company he's founding with an engineer friend.
work hard and work little
97% of Google employees say the tech giant is a great place to work, compared to just 57% of employees at the typical U.S. company. Google is well known for its array of benefits. A quirky campus with bikes, a gym, and free food. And a high salary. In addition to his six-figure salary, Devon will receive a sign-on bonus and expects a year-end bonus, according to his offer letter.
When Devon took the job, he knew he wouldn't be able to work very hard — probably based on his experience interning there. He earned more than $2,000 a week, worked “probably less than two hours” a day, and rarely went to the office (which was mandatory), he says. He was not so much slacking off as he was carefully underestimating the speed of his work. He completed all the code for his internship early on, so he was able to keep sending it to his boss all summer (he doesn't think his boss suspected anything). Stated. He also planned a week-long trip to Hawaii during his shift.
“If you want to work long hours, you'll be at a startup,” he says. “Most people choose Google for its work-life balance and benefits. did it They work for Apple, which has a fan appeal to software engineers. They work long hours…but at Google, most people understand that what they do is work. ”
Devon said, “I wasn't particularly interested in going to a hedge fund or a quantitative firm because they would pay me $300,000, but the problem was, I was actually working well over 40 hours a week. It means I have to work,” he added. I think if you can work a few hours a day, an hour a day, your base will be much smaller [salary] It works well. ”
While tech giant executives extol the virtues of efficiency, Devon doesn't think they “actually put any value on it.” Google's Code of Conduct requires employees to log full-time hours and leave personal projects that do not constitute a conflict of interest outside of working hours. but He said that no one noticed his five-hour work weeks, and that he achieved enough in short spurts that he could avoid scrutiny or impose extra work on himself. They say it's because they can. When someone starts to have doubts, they submit lines of code that they've hidden, as if they've been working on it all week.
“You don't get promoted beyond that,” says Devon, who has seen colleagues over the years burn the midnight oil without getting promoted (as part of Google's revamped development program last year). He explained. Employees are given formal performance reviews once a year, and promotions are given twice a year). On the other hand, he's met all expectations with a compressed schedule, and he says his arrangement is “essentially the same thing as working hard.”
Polyworking results
Devon's setting is not as unusual as it may seem. While some people cut corners at work to have more time to relax, the advent of remote work has also given workers like Devon greater freedom who are willing to double down on their work to maximize profits. I did. A recent Monster report found that nearly half of workers hold multiple full-time jobs, and most of them do so to make ends meet.
Devon is a different case. Although he makes enough money to support himself, he is biding his time until he no longer needs his side hustle and can be independent. Ideally, he plans to leave Google and start a startup, but if he fails, he plans to boomerang back. He said Google is very focused on rehiring former Google employees.
he also says this This ignores Google's return-to-office policy, which expects most employees to work in the office three days a week, but each department can set its own rules (including full remote work in exceptional cases). ). That “doesn't work for him,” he says. Because it makes managers feel like they are the “watchtower”.
But Devon added that his manager is “cool” about him not coming. “I'm sure at some point I'll get an email from Google telling me not to wear the badge, but I won't pay attention until I get a warning.” And if they decide to punish him by firing him. Devon says he still feels safe because they give him a generous severance package.
He admits that his way of life “doesn't work 100%” in a startup with fewer people to manage, and that he's not blind to the privilege of his situation. “I'm very lucky to be in the position I'm in,” he says. “Even if you get laid off, you'll still have enough runway to pay a year's worth of rent and find another job.” Not everyone is like that, so we encourage you to live your life. There's little you can do, he points out. “You have to be lucky in a way,” he says.
This article originally appeared on Fortune.com
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