User talk:Zakgreant/Log

Maybe it's partly because I'm nosy about what other people are up to, but I kinda wish more WMF employees (and people in general) would keep logs. I keep a log too, but I mix so much personal stuff into it that I decided to move it to my personal bliki. However, one advantage of a log is that it complements one's to-do list and in some cases the two can be integrated.

I'm not sure how useful logs are for accountability purposes, because if there's any incentive for a person to be dishonest about what he's been spending time on, then there is nothing preventing him from omitting certain items from his log. E.g., people will not write, "Spent 3 hours chatting on Facebook, surfing Reddit, and checking the sports sites" if there is a boss who might read it. However, I will sometimes put such activities in my personal log, since I don't have a boss.

On the other hand, there are limits to how much a log can be falsified. In the long run, a log can't be used to make it sound like the person is accomplishing more than he is, because eventually he has to provide deliverables; and those deliverables are what he'll be judged by. From that standpoint, it really doesn't matter if the person spent 3 hours goofing off; all that matters is how much work got done. Sometimes bosses don't look at it that way, though. Leucosticte (talk) 04:57, 31 December 2013 (UTC)