Do you pace your work????

[steppinthrax]

So this is the deal. At my last job one of my attributes was I completed work very quickly. If I was given a project which would take a week It would get completed in 2 days or so on. So anyway someone I knew told me that it was a good idea to pace my work. So if the project takes a week or so finish it and just wait off the results until the week is up. They said if you don't people will think the work is either low quality, too easy or mangers will take adavantage of the situation.

I'm thinking if you do the work faster then normal and the results are great the manager will think of you as more valuable????

 

[nageov3t]

depends on what it is.

I'm generally in the school of "do it as quickly as possible, but take as much time as you need to make sure something is absolutely right."

I've got one coworker who does whatever he's assigned perfectly, but takes 8 hours to do it, and another who rushes through five things at once and half-asses them all. they both suck.

 

[steppinthrax]

bump

 

[Gothgar]

you could always use the other three days to go over the work, let it sit around, sleep on it, you get more ideas and produce better work that way... right?

 

[hiromizu]

It's called managing expectations and it is a quantifiable measurement of success in the work force. Learn it and breathe it otherwise you're failing miserably - in their eyes.

 

[HaiBiss]

Pace is not the right word, yes i move fast but I go back over it again to make sure that it is completed correctly, sometimes I am still ahead of the sched. but not always is it a good thing,

 

[BurnItDwn]

I usually try to beat expectations too. Usually they get me involved in more or harder projects, but that's fine with me. If I can help to make the company more money then dividends on stock go higher and they pay out higher on the profit sharing. Also, its nice to have a good reputation at work since that helped me get a development job (in the same company) with a "bachelors degree required" even though I have no degree at all. Also, I'd prefer to get larger increases from doing good work rather than smaller increases for doing mediocre work. So, if they say it will take a week, give them the results in 3 or 4 days ... don't kill yourself to get it done in two, but try to beat their expectations. If they give you a project and it winds up taking longer than they say it will, they will hopefully realize that they misjudged the scale of the project.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Don't be a slacker but don't rush things beyond your capability for quality work, either. Sometimes down time gives inspiration, though, FYI.

 

[olds]

One job I had, I took over for a guy that paced himself. He was a smoker (died of cancer) and he took smoke breaks that were as long as his work time.
After I had been at the job about two months he came up to me and told me I was making him look bad and to slow down. I told him he made himself look bad and I was going to work at my level. We never got along.

In the Army, I was hard core. I was squared away and knew my job and everyone elses too. The 1st sergeant and the officers came to depend on me to much (they knew the task was going to be done well) so they wanted me for everything. So while I was Sergeant of the Guard at a nuke site, my fellow Sergeants were loafing around in the rear with the gear.
My present job is much the same. I go all out and most of my co-workers loaf.

There is just something inside me that won't let me loaf and insists I do a good job at whatever I do. It gets frustrating at times knowing the loafer is being paid as much as I am but I can't/won't tone it down. I feel good about my performance and wonder how the other guy can live with himself.

 

[child of wonder]

The safest answer is to probably get the project done a little ahead of schedule if you can, but not too far ahead.

Example, complete a 5 day project in 4 days.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: child of wonder
The safest answer is to probably get the project done a little ahead of schedule if you can, but not too far ahead.

Example, complete a 5 day project in 4 days.

The safest answer is to do the work right, period, regardless of how long it's going to take. If it's going to be late, make sure you give the heads up long before the due date.

 

[Jeff7181]

I work as fast as I can without sacrificing quality.

 

[HannibalX]

Originally posted by: steppinthrax
So this is the deal. At my last job one of my attributes was I completed work very quickly. If I was given a project which would take a week It would get completed in 2 days or so on. So anyway someone I knew told me that it was a good idea to pace my work. So if the project takes a week or so finish it and just wait off the results until the week is up. They said if you don't people will think the work is either low quality, too easy or mangers will take adavantage of the situation.

I'm thinking if you do the work faster then normal and the results are great the manager will think of you as more valuable????

I used to do this until I found out that it doesn't matter in a large corporate environment. Myself and other people on my team would work our assess off to complete projects early, work long hours and weekends. The company would hire new people above our pay grade for the team anyway, instead of giving us raises and hiring the new people in at our old rate. Certain members of our team that made the same as the hard workers on the team did absolutely nothing and got put in charge of projects, given raises and bonuses, were able to work from home, etc. The three-four of us who were working our asses off finally said "fuck it" and started just doing the bare min like everyone else. What a stress relief.

 

[Evadman]

If I caught you doing that I would fire you. Give an honest ETA, not high or low; something actually achievable.

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
I used to do this until I found out that it doesn't matter in a large corporate environment. Myself and other people on my team would work our assess off to complete projects early, work long hours and weekends. The company would hire new people above our pay grade for the team anyway, instead of giving us raises and hiring the new people in at our old rate. Certain members of our team that made the same as the hard workers on the team did absolutely nothing and got put in charge of projects, given raises and bonuses, were able to work from home, etc. The three-four of us who were working our asses off finally said "fuck it" and started just doing the bare min like everyone else. What a stress relief.

That is just plain bad management.

 

[HannibalX]

Originally posted by: Evadman
If I caught you doing that I would fire you. Give an honest ETA, not high or low; something actually achievable.

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
I used to do this until I found out that it doesn't matter in a large corporate environment. Myself and other people on my team would work our assess off to complete projects early, work long hours and weekends. The company would hire new people above our pay grade for the team anyway, instead of giving us raises and hiring the new people in at our old rate. Certain members of our team that made the same as the hard workers on the team did absolutely nothing and got put in charge of projects, given raises and bonuses, were able to work from home, etc. The three-four of us who were working our asses off finally said "fuck it" and started just doing the bare min like everyone else. What a stress relief.

That is just plain bad management.

Hell yes it was bad management. From 3/06-1/08 I had 7 direct report bosses. Welcome to corporate America. It's about the same anywhere you go. This was for a fortune 200 company BTW that was making about a billion/quarter in profit, not some failing company.

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: Pale Rider

Originally posted by: Evadman
If I caught you doing that I would fire you. Give an honest ETA, not high or low; something actually achievable.

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
I used to do this until I found out that it doesn't matter in a large corporate environment. Myself and other people on my team would work our assess off to complete projects early, work long hours and weekends. The company would hire new people above our pay grade for the team anyway, instead of giving us raises and hiring the new people in at our old rate. Certain members of our team that made the same as the hard workers on the team did absolutely nothing and got put in charge of projects, given raises and bonuses, were able to work from home, etc. The three-four of us who were working our asses off finally said "fuck it" and started just doing the bare min like everyone else. What a stress relief.

That is just plain bad management.

Hell yes it was bad management. From 3/06-1/08 I had 7 direct report bosses. Welcome to corporate America. It's about the same anywhere you go. This was for a fortune 200 company BTW that was making about a billion/quarter in profit, not some failing company.

Makes sense. When you're very profitable, the incentive to have things super efficient and streamlined can fall to the background. When you're operating on a thin margin, you bet your ass you might go from seven bosses to maybe six or five.