Ask HN: Make something of the free time at work, Hacker News

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Ask HN: Make something of the free time at work

20 pointsby

highhedgehog************************************************************************************************** minutes ago|hidepast|web|favorite|****************************************************************************************** (comments) ***********

In my job there are a lot of times where I am not doing much and slacking off. Unfortunately there is a lot of control due to security and I cannot do much on my computer (no install of software, a lot of websites are blocked by the firewall etc.).

For instance, I would like to learn a new technology, or consolidate one (for instance Node.js) that I know, but I can’t because I cannot install Node.js , ore reach npm to install packages.

How can I use the time that I have available during work? What would you do?Books are not a good idea because I don’t think it would seem good to bring a book and study it at my desk

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I think this is asking the wrong question.Your team lead might not have realized that the workload is becoming sporadic.

Speak to them, explain the situation, and ask if there are other smaller tasks you could use to fill in the gaps.

If it “wouldn’t seem good to bring a book to study at my desk”, then it’s probably not a good idea to do effectively the same thing on the computer either.********

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I’m sure many people have headphones on, download courses on your phone and listen to them, or audio books, nobody needs to know where the sound is coming from!

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At my work we organized group trainings, where we all learn X technology together that is related to our jobs in that we could do more if we knew how to use it but don’t actually need to use it. Maybe there is some approved software that could be installed that is semi-related to your job.

The raspberry pi is a good suggestion, but if you don’t want to be seen bringing outside hardware into the building, you could look into Amazon Workspaces or another remote workstation service, or host your own box and remote into it. Workspaces has a web client for accessing your workspace, so unless Amazon cloud services is specifically blocked at work, you should be able to access it. There’s a small monthly fee, but I’d think it’d be well worth it.

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1. read ebook. problem solved.2. make use of Instapaper. save a bunch of articles to read into Instapaper the previous night, come to work and read them via Instapaper.**************************************************************************************************************

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Nice! Yes, I’ve been in that situation multiple times as the OP posted. I did not find a reason that I need to push myself to do stuff that is not allowed in the office (I’d like to have some freedom from my employers in order to learn new things other than doing my job well). Instead I usually quit after saving some money and start working on my projects, though none of it had any impact, I just like working on my own projects. Well this is how my life goes so far. And I cannot say that it as a solution for everyone. Just sharing.************************************************************

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If research is something that might be considered work during the day you could hop on Sci- Hub and read some interesting papers.

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If it would look bad to read a book at your desk, that would seem to suggest There’s something else your employer expects you to be doing with your time?

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Let’s not pretend that “looking busy” isn’t part of most office culture. There are times at most jobs, statistically, where you have nothing expected of you but are still required to be at a desk and look like a member of the workforce.

Pretty sure you employer expects you to be making them money with your time. At the same time, you should be expecting to do as little as possible for your compensation.It’s funny how culturally, we paint business practices of optimizing profit as picturesque but paint labor optimizing their profit as a sin.It’s really all a matter of perspective and somewhere, most the labor force was convinced to take the capital owners perspective.

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Trying to do things that aren’t work while you’re paid to do work is an easy way to short circuit your career prospects. Don’t do that.Make good use of the time. Talk to your manager about things you could be doing that would improve the codebase you work on and enable you to learn new things. Better yet, make some suggestions.

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That’s only if you are planning to stick around. If you are thinking of moving on soon it’s a good time to learn and practice.

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	* () If there’s nothing to do, there’s nothing to do. Also, aren’t you at work? Also, in Office Space, Peter Gibbons basically gets promoted for slacking off – contrast this with Milton. ********

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If you can’t bring a book, then you probably shouldn’t bring your own laptop or much anything else. Do you have your phone? Maybe you could do something on that.

I indeed cannot bring my laptop. It’s a bank and they are taking security seriously apparently, which is good on one side, but bad on my side because I cannot do anything.

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It would really help to have more details, like what country you’re in and what industry, eg Banking, Defense, etc..**************************

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Could you bring your own laptop? Of course not connecting it to the LAN.Alternative: use a RPi with your monitor / mouse / keyboard.

I actually used to do this – just have it casually sitting on the side of my desk . Most of the time it was lid-open off to the side (which ostensibly signaled I was not actively working on it, maybe just checking something). In rare cases my manager came around, I could pretend quickly enough I was actually working. This ended up being a very productive period for me personally (maybe 3-6 months) due to this change.

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RPi=Raspberry Pi? Not sure that’s commonly used enough to use without a parentheses long version: (

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Don’t undermine your company or risk being fired. That said, you can go to LeetCode (or just email yourself screenshots of the problems) and then work on the solutions in Notepad . Email those solutions to yourself and then, when you get home, you can submit those solutions for credit.************************************************************************************************************************