Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

codewithoutrules.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 152 posts

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#71

Post by jdavis703 »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #18
patrickdavey wrote: post #5

I went to a talk once on leadership. One of the suggestions was to get your "go to hell kit" ready. That is, get enough money in the bank (whatever that means for you) so that you can walk away if things cross your personal lines, be they moral / work-life balance, whatever. It's a good thing if there's pressure to work silly hours. In my first job (recent grad) before I left the job, I'd been working 5 weekends stra…

> You're just reducing your hourly rate. This is how I've always explained to people who constantly work overtime in salaried positions where they don't actually get paid for that overtime. You can at look at it one of 2 ways. 1. Your billable self stopped at the 8-hour mark on a given weekday and every hour after that, including weekends, you're just giving away free labor to the company. Just think about that every…

Sure you can put in whatever your contract says and nothing more... Or they could fire you, move you out the fast track career situation, and remove you from the "good" projects.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#72

Post by NoGravitas »

ryandrake wrote: post #55

The "paths to a saner week" seem pretty simplistic and unrealistic. Want fewer hours? Work fewer hours! Wow, you don't say?! That simple, huh? The quote from the article is "you always have the option of unilaterally normalizing your hours." Oh reeeeally? Don't like your commute? Don't commute so much. Just snap your fingers and afford to live closer to work! Got it. Want a shorter work week? Just "negotiate" (word m…

Take advantage of the one proven means of normalizing the negotiation power between you and your employer: join a union, organize your shop, and take advantage of collective bargaining rights. This is obviously easier said than done, but at least it's not based on magical thinking.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#73

Post by taneq »

ThePawnBreak wrote: post #23
flanbiscuit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're just reducing your hourly rate. This is how I've always explained to people who constantly work overtime in salaried positions where they don't actually get paid for that overtime. You can at look at it one of 2 ways. 1. Your billable self stopped at the 8-hour mark on a given weekday and every hour after that, including weekends, you're just giving away free labor to the company. Just think about that every…

Do you also account for the fact that you are way more likely to be promoted if you work overtime?

"Fact"? When you're already willing to work for 2/3rds of your market rate? No, you've advertised your commitment to being stuck in the trenches while new people are hired over your head until you burn out.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#74

Post by AnimalMuppet »

antirez wrote: post #13

I don't know what's the perfect amount of work every week, but I'm sure anything > 40h is wrong, and you should add commute time if more than 30min/day, otherwise it's a fake figure. In 36-40h/week it's possible to do a lot of things. If you can't often is not because of the time, but because the same people wanting you to work more vaporize your time with meetings, conference calls, emails, phone calls, at a rate th…

Good post, but... Never say never. Instead, say "almost never".

In this business, sometimes a crisis happens. Sometimes you need to be there more than 40 hours a week. I accept that as part of the profession, as long as it's rare.

When a show-stopper bug gets exposed two days before we're supposed to ship, and my boss called me at 9 PM, I came in and was there until 1 AM identifying the problem. When it's only happened once in seven years, well, you just roll with it when it happens.

When they expect it every week? No. Change your expectations, or I'll change jobs.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#75

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dx034 wrote: post #31
antirez wrote: post #13

I don't know what's the perfect amount of work every week, but I'm sure anything > 40h is wrong, and you should add commute time if more than 30min/day, otherwise it's a fake figure. In 36-40h/week it's possible to do a lot of things. If you can't often is not because of the time, but because the same people wanting you to work more vaporize your time with meetings, conference calls, emails, phone calls, at a rate th…

I wouldn't necessarily draw the line there. It always depends on your situation. If you don't have a family, working 7.30am-5.30pm (my approx working hours) 5 days per week still allows you to have enough time to spend with friends and for side projects. If your really dedicated to your project and have no family waiting at home, why should you always leave after 8 hours? Sitting in front of the TV at home isn't nece…

> If your really dedicated to your project and have no family waiting at home, why should you always leave after 8 hours?

I'll work longer than 8 hours if I want to. I won't work longer than 8 hours because you want or expect me to. That's the difference.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#76

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ryandrake wrote: post #55

The "paths to a saner week" seem pretty simplistic and unrealistic. Want fewer hours? Work fewer hours! Wow, you don't say?! That simple, huh? The quote from the article is "you always have the option of unilaterally normalizing your hours." Oh reeeeally? Don't like your commute? Don't commute so much. Just snap your fingers and afford to live closer to work! Got it. Want a shorter work week? Just "negotiate" (word m…

If your employer expects constant overtime from you, start looking. When you have an offer from a sane place in hand, quit your current job. On the way out, tell them why. It might help the others who are still there.

In a world that complains about a shortage of programmers, you have more leverage than you may think.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#77

Post by r_smart »

antirez wrote: post #13

I don't know what's the perfect amount of work every week, but I'm sure anything > 40h is wrong, and you should add commute time if more than 30min/day, otherwise it's a fake figure. In 36-40h/week it's possible to do a lot of things. If you can't often is not because of the time, but because the same people wanting you to work more vaporize your time with meetings, conference calls, emails, phone calls, at a rate th…

I know everyone is different, but one of my greatest periods of productivity was when I was finishing my EE degree. My employer let me drop my hours down to 30/week, but it didn't really change my responsibilities / workload. I used to come in to work, bust ass, and get to class. It was a really happy time for me, professionally speaking.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#78

Post by cookiecaper »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #76
ryandrake wrote: post #55

The "paths to a saner week" seem pretty simplistic and unrealistic. Want fewer hours? Work fewer hours! Wow, you don't say?! That simple, huh? The quote from the article is "you always have the option of unilaterally normalizing your hours." Oh reeeeally? Don't like your commute? Don't commute so much. Just snap your fingers and afford to live closer to work! Got it. Want a shorter work week? Just "negotiate" (word m…

If your employer expects constant overtime from you, start looking. When you have an offer from a sane place in hand, quit your current job. On the way out, tell them why . It might help the others who are still there. In a world that complains about a shortage of programmers, you have more leverage than you may think.

There is risk involved in doing that. I've seen a lot of people come back to their former employer after trying out a new place and not having it work out. If you give a real accounting of your opinions in an exit interview, that escape hatch from the new gig would probably close.

The amount of leverage you have is heavily dependent on the perception of your bosses. If your bosses know how rare a good programmer is and truly do value you, then you shouldn't have these problems anyway, and I'm sure they'd rectify them ASAP if you brought them up. Many of us don't work for such enlightened people, though.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#79

Post by borplk »

jnordwick wrote: post #30

Let me come in with a contradictory opinion especially on the overtime. You don't work for your current salary, you work for your next one. If you are one of those 9 to 5 ers, don't complain when the guy working 60 hours and more gets that promotion over you. The higher up the ladder you go, the more that will be required of you. Also, startups or high paying jobs will require more of you since you will get getting m…

This is a pretty naive approach in most cases.

There are tons of companies (I'd argue most) where firstly there's no "next big salary" to be received (it's a slooow upwards trajectory) and secondly promotions are not based on who works harder than everyone else.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#80

Post by cookiecaper »

happychappy wrote: post #51
edw519 wrote: post #4

Finally, you'll need to have the self-confidence or stubbornness to choose and stick to a path that most people don't take. You don't need self-confidence or stubbornness, just commitment to your principles... I have never worked more than 40 hours per week for anyone else. Ever. I arrive at 8. I leave at 5. I don't work from home. Except for emergencies. My definition of emergency: If someone is dying or their produ…

As a manager: If your code blows up in production on a Saturday afternoon, and you don't answer email/skype/phone, you've effectively left me in the shit. I know thats my job, and I will deal with it and survive, but your future work is going to be very heavily scrutinized - borderline micromanaged - until I trust you again But the flipside, if your code blows up in production on a Saturday, and you spend four hours…

Others are recording the need for a real on-call rotation, so I'll just jump into this:

>Aside from that, I expect 40 hours of "quality" braintime from you, and I don't really care where or when those hours occur, as long as you're collaborating with the team when they need you.

There is no way you are getting 40 hours of "quality brain time" from anyone. If you believe you are, you don't know what "quality brain time" is.

Assign the amount of work you feel is reasonable. Let the worker do the work. If the work gets done, it doesn't matter how much time it took. Knowledge workers sell their knowledge to help you accomplish a designated task, not their time.

How much work really gets done in a 40-hour work week? Anyone who has been in any office environment knows that probably at least 50% of that time is always just farting around trying to rack up butt-in-chair time. Consider also that promotions and political favors are usually withheld from people who do the "bare minimum" of 40 hours and that butt-in-chair time comprises 95% of an external entity's (like, say, your boss's boss) assessment of job performance, and the time constraints can become quite demanding.

We should do away with the Industrial-era culture of minutely managing hours (when time working was directly correlated to the quantity of products a company could assemble, and thus counting time allowed the company to reasonably reliably assign a portion of the revenue to its employees) and embrace the Information-era mandate of small, irregular work units moving the majority of the product.

We should accommodate workers such that they can cultivate a fruitful and creative mental state for use in employment when inspiration and flow is most likely to strike (which, for coders, is usually in the middle of the night when there is a solid block of 5-6 hours with 0 interruptions), instead of forcing our supposedly-revered knowledge workers into deadened, drooling blobs stuck to their chairs for 55 hours a week because they're vying for a promotion next year.

It's a major pet peeve to see someone treating knowledge workers like assembly linemen. More butt-in-chair time != more productivity, and in fact, once a certain threshold is reached (probably ~20 hours), it becomes counterproductive.

Post reply on HN