[megaframe]

Same but I've also been in places where they do look over your shoulder and I ended up fighting the tide. Everyone around me was in a constant panic mode, so I slowed my work output for 2 weeks (most I could get away with without ending up in a room talking about my work performance) where I studied and optimized the tasks consuming most of my time. Then automated them (this involved working what felt like two jobs at once pushing well over 80h a week)....

When I finished I had so much free time I could finally start doing the interesting projects and my work output was consistently 2x my co-workers. I considered explaining this to management but they had just admonished a co-worker for not doing the thing they asked and trying to improve process. So I kept it to myself.

Obviously this was a bit of a toxic work environment (early in my career) and I was luckily switched out of this group.

My point is that you can fight bad management to make a better working environment for yourself but it takes a lot of effort and you need to be strategic in what you tell them as it can backfire.

[commandlinefan]

> look over your shoulder

I suspect that one of the drivers behind open offices is to make it easy to “catch” people who are “wasting time” learning on the job.