> There are plenty of people who would love to be dead weight just to float around in a company
Not really. Even they will carve out some niche and pretend (even to themselves) to be doing useful work. Middle managers love to schedule irrelevant meetings, but they will provide some business justification to themselves and to others. You'll find the odd developer that's maintaining some internal app by themselves.
It's very rare that employees are just twiddling their thumbs and doing nothing all day. Specially if we are talking about a highly skilled workforce. I've seen that more often on boring entry level jobs - because the jobs are already boring by nature, so doing nothing and doing something is not much of a difference anyway.
> Even they will carve out some niche and pretend (even to themselves) to be doing useful work. ... You'll find the odd developer that's maintaining some internal app by themselves.
In my experience, internal apps need far more love. Maintaining internal apps is far more useful than most 'real' work, just because it can be a multiplier on so much other 'real' work.
I probably know north of 30 people in sales, all in my somewhat close friend circle. They all brag about not working and making money. I think it's part of the sales culture. It's like a badge of honor to not work hard and make money. Hell, I don't blame them. Visit any golf course since covid and you'll see tee time and tee time stacked with people 'working from home'.
I usually assume that I can't take sales people at face value. If it's a badge of honour, they're incentivised to say that they don't work hard even if they are in fact actually working hard (this includes pretending to enjoy golf).
Having said that, 30 people is a lot of people, so I'm inclined to accept your assessment at face value.
Not really. Even they will carve out some niche and pretend (even to themselves) to be doing useful work. Middle managers love to schedule irrelevant meetings, but they will provide some business justification to themselves and to others. You'll find the odd developer that's maintaining some internal app by themselves.
It's very rare that employees are just twiddling their thumbs and doing nothing all day. Specially if we are talking about a highly skilled workforce. I've seen that more often on boring entry level jobs - because the jobs are already boring by nature, so doing nothing and doing something is not much of a difference anyway.