Insider Finance - Business - Insider Today: ‘Fake work’ in Big Tech

There are few industries that draw less sympathy these days than Big Tech.

People don’t look kindly on our tech overlords, whether it’s because of the copious amounts of data they collect on us or the threat they might put us all out of a job one day.

So when word started trickling out about their employees doing “fake work,” the reaction was somewhat expected.

What a bunch of lazy, spoiled kids!

But as Insider’s Hugh Langley and Grace Kay write, categorizing these employees as lazy is a mischaracterization of the situation.

In reality, employees doing “fake work” are simply the result of a bigger issue: lazy managers.

Sure, tech workers pointing the finger back at their bosses might seem like a weak argument, but Hugh and Grace make a compelling case for why managers are the real culprit.

A core part of the issue stems from so-called empire-building efforts among managers. The more people you have reporting to you, the more important you’ll seem. It doesn’t matter what said people actually do — just make sure your org chart is looking robust.

That’s coupled with a tech culture in which “What’s next?” has always taken precedence over “What’s now?”

The day-to-day minutiae of keeping the lights on at a company may not get you noticed as much as a new tool or feature that ends up being a game changer.

One Google manager said the tech giant had “dozens” of teams that did "think-tank-like strategy work with no real practical way of impacting the business or a customer or user."

"I do think that process favored the people who were better at bullshitting and storytelling," he told Hugh and Grace.

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