zlacker

I agree. I see it all the time. Huge amounts of hours being wasted "working hard", and running away from answering the real questions which would double the (positive) output in half the time.

That said, I think "laziness" is only a small part of the answer. It seems to me that it's usually about an emotional response. Kind of like procrastination. The hard questions hit hard. There's a real good-feeling self-satisfaction from putting in hours of sweat.

>>winwan+(OP)
> I agree. I see it all the time. Huge amounts of hours being wasted "working hard", and running away from answering the real questions which would double the (positive) output in half the time.

I think a lot of times we are put in boxes, and our roles are pretty heavily constrained, such that we do not have the power to "answer the real questions." Raise your hand anyone who's had this conversation with their manager:

Manager: "Dev, I'd like you to take more responsibility, be transformational, be a 'force multiplier' for the team!"

Dev: "OK, let me make major architectural decisions without having to get approval from three levels of managers."

Manager: "Uh, wait..."

Dev: "Let me hire and fire, and build up a team of direct reports."

Manager: "Hold up..."

Dev: "Give me a budget to spend on tools, training, contractors, and so on."

Manager: "Whoa, whoa, whoa.. I didn't mean that transformational..."

>>winwan+(OP)
Lazy is a convenient catch all for "This person lacks the emotional fortitude to do the work when the option of not doing the work presents itself."

There are a million reasons/excuses for people to be lazy depending on perspective.

Personally, I view people with this trait to be productivity vampires that I avoid like the plague regardless of their reasons (which in my experience are 99% excuses and 1% genuine hardships).

>>ryandr+gc
Not quite that extreme but yea. I've had those conversations.

> Working on X but Y is a blocker

> Okay, I can do some work with Y to help get unblocked

> No we'll let A (on a different team, maybe a different contracted studio) deal with it, here's tiny widget Z to work on in the meantime

Sometimes it means well, sometimes it feels like they don't value your expertise nor care about fostering growth. And sometimes it's just politics (especially when working with multiple different companies and contractors and all that).