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The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

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Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#91

Post by happychappy »

grecy wrote: post #60
happychappy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. As an IT employee if you are running mission critical software and (as Manager) don't have an after hours call-out rotation and procedures, then you're not doing a very good job, and I'll be looking for another place of employment.

The wonders of missing context :)

Its not mission critical or life-threatening. I know this, my team knows this, but someone up in the food chain is going to want blood for any serious outage.

I'm perfectly happy to shed blood for my team and take the crap, but I need something. Even if its a text back: "Dangling on mountain. Will check email on Monday" - then I can tell my higher-ups it won't be fixed till Monday, then they can tell who they need to tell.

Its the attitude that says "I'll only work 40 hours then turn my phone off" that I object to, there are real people up and down the line who are affected by business interruptions. If you're not flexible, sorry, but you're not that useful.

You probably wouldn't enjoy working on my team, and you'd probably pick that up from the interview

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#92

Post by cookiecaper »

kamaal wrote: post #9

The problem is never more working hours. Nobody minds working extra hours as long as they are paid for it. The problem really is companies expecting people to do far more then anything they are ready to pay for. Sometime its even more worse when a few people have to make up for other people, and then watch the lazy group get rewarded better for political reasons. The real issue is resentment not extra working hours.

There are people that have obligations outside of the work day, particularly people with families. You couldn't pay me to work a 12 hour day, for example, because those hours are reserved for my wife and kids. Emergencies are one thing, but no way would I accept it as routine, even if I got paid extra.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#93

Post by adrianratnapala »

triplesec wrote: post #29
makecheck wrote: post #20

One red flag is this: does a company zealously track every hour of vacation time but not even give you a place to log overtime? These two things should be treated with equal importance because they are fundamentally the same measurement. If they expect you to take precisely 2 weeks of vacation a year then be sure to reward them by doing precisely 8 hours of work each day. If they have leniency in vacation, reward the…

or four weeks' vacation in a jurisdiction with humane labour practices

I agree that 28 days is reasonable while 14 isn't really.

But if we start calling 14 "inhumane", then we are in danger of losing our grip on what what inhumanity is. Which is to lose our grip on our moral compass.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#94

Post by makmanalp »

Practicality wrote: post #62
pjc50 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promotions are a myth told to people to get them to work harder, aren't they? They're quite rare and usually come with moderate increments. Whereas the best way to increase your salary is to move jobs. Salary is only vaguely linked to job title. (I was once promoted en passant , when my first employer wished to inflate the number of Senior Developers assigned to a consulting proposal...)

I've never seen en passant used outside of chess before. It makes sense though, so long as he didn't capture you afterward.

literally, it means "in passing".

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#95

Post by adrianratnapala »

NoGravitas wrote: post #72
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.

Or become a contractor. That's what I'm doing.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#96

Post by CodeMage »

makecheck wrote: post #20

One red flag is this: does a company zealously track every hour of vacation time but not even give you a place to log overtime? These two things should be treated with equal importance because they are fundamentally the same measurement. If they expect you to take precisely 2 weeks of vacation a year then be sure to reward them by doing precisely 8 hours of work each day. If they have leniency in vacation, reward the…

Overtime? For software engineers? Where?

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#97

Post by adrianratnapala »

happychappy wrote: post #91
grecy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. As an IT employee if you are running mission critical software and (as Manager) don't have an after hours call-out rotation and procedures, then you're not doing a very good job, and I'll be looking for another place of employment.

The wonders of missing context :) Its not mission critical or life-threatening. I know this, my team knows this, but someone up in the food chain is going to want blood for any serious outage. I'm perfectly happy to shed blood for my team and take the crap, but I need something. Even if its a text back: "Dangling on mountain. Will check email on Monday" - then I can tell my higher-ups it won't be fixed till Monday, t…

I am all for flexibility -- but I think the quid-quo-pro here is that the phone is only for legitimate problems.

Not for example: "Oh the customer has decided that the feature we thought we implemented wasn't what he wanted. Can we have this weeks' requirement met by Monday?"

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#98

Post by CodeMage »

happychappy wrote: post #91
grecy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. As an IT employee if you are running mission critical software and (as Manager) don't have an after hours call-out rotation and procedures, then you're not doing a very good job, and I'll be looking for another place of employment.

The wonders of missing context :) Its not mission critical or life-threatening. I know this, my team knows this, but someone up in the food chain is going to want blood for any serious outage. I'm perfectly happy to shed blood for my team and take the crap, but I need something. Even if its a text back: "Dangling on mountain. Will check email on Monday" - then I can tell my higher-ups it won't be fixed till Monday, t…

I think @grecy was pretty clear, but FWIW, here's my interpretation: the system is either important enough to disturb employees after hours or it isn't. If it is, you need to define and implement a support protocol: on-call rotations, procedures, etc.

If it isn't important enough to organize support for it, then it isn't important enough and you should not expect anyone to justify being off work and off duty.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#99

Post by belenos46 »

jnordwick wrote: post #50
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…

Why am I getting down voted for this?

Obvious reasons.

Re: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

#100

Post by mrweasel »

jnordwick wrote: post #50
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…

Why am I getting down voted for this?

While I didn't down vote, I would say: because you're wrong.

You seem to suffer from the delusion that number of hours a person works is what matters. Most people aren't productive above 40 hours a week, any high number of hours and you're just wasting time.

Then there's the fact that working 60+ hours of week simply isn't health, and you're advocating that the thing you need to do to advance in the world is to trade in health for promotions, and increased salary.

If a job requires a person to work 60+ hours per week, then may it should be two jobs, not one. So now you're not just encouraging people so scarifies health, family and friend for you job, you're basically under biding a another person by doing their work for free.

Edit: May not wrong, but the advocate for a work environment that should be illegal. In fact it is illegal where I live.

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