| That's definitely the way management wants you to work, and it's worth trying to see how it works out. But in many cases it's not in your personal best interest. In those cases, there's a way to keep management happy and yourself too: 1) Realize that when management asks for time estimates, they don't want your median estimate, because you'll be late half the time and that messes up their scheduling. Give them an estimate that you'll meet at least 90% of the time. 2) This means in almost half the cases, you'll have extra time. You can give some of that back to management, but use some of the time to fix technical debt. The more debt, the more of the time you spend fixing it. 3) With less technical debt, you can speed up your estimates and still be at that 90% level. Now you're delivering as much as if you let management fill your time in the first place. Your code magically has fewer bugs, there aren't many unexpected delays, and you almost always meet your deadlines. But you still have plenty of free time to improve things even more, develop your skills, etc. As a bonus, you have more of a sense of agency, which is an important factor in feeling happy at work. |