[majormajor]

That sounds lovely in theory but gets tricky quick with employees who give you estimates that seem too high, and then don't even meet those.

And then you have to figure out if they need help, if they're over their head, if they're being lazy, if they're getting interrupted by stuff that's not on your radar, or WTF is really going on, and if (a) they're not telling you and (b) you have no visibility into their day (say they're remote), then it gets really hard fast.

And the more insecure they feel, the less likely they are to directly tell you they need help.

So as manager: don't joke about firing, don't joke about time at desk, don't joke about performance.

But as employee: if you get your shit down, and have talked to your manager about it, and you're both good with the amount of stuff getting done, you shouldn't be concerned with taking a day off here or there, or leaving early, or working from home. But be aware that a lot of performance monitoring stuff isn't for you, and not everyone is doing as well as you are.

[danenania]

"estimates that seem too high, and then don't even meet those"

This is pretty much the definition of an estimate in software.

[amznthrowaway5]

Since the estimates are almost always off, it's a perfect way for the managers to reward the people they like for political reasons, and punish the ones they don't.

[amznthrowaway5]

> That sounds lovely in theory but gets tricky quick with employees who give you estimates that seem too high, and then don't even meet those.

How many managers are competent enough to judge that kind of stuff, and whether or not any excuses produced are reasonable? Even in the technical manager cases I've seen, maybe 1%. The people who constantly bs excuses are often the ones rewarded, as opposed to the people who actually focus on the work and take a little longer to get it done properly.

[pc86]

> Even in the technical manager cases I've seen

You say this as if technical managers are better managers? In my experience the opposite is almost always true.

[amznthrowaway5]

At least for engineering manager positions, there shouldn't be any non-technical people. How are non-technical managers supposed to allocate work and judge how well their technical employees are performing.