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How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

brianknapp.me

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Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#181

Post by jpindar »

tomsmeding wrote: post #33
harrygallagher4 wrote: post #3

My first programming job (actually, just my first job) was technically a 40 hour/week job, but in the employee handbook it said something along the lines of: "The day is typically regarded as 8AM to 8PM." They didn't pay very well either. Brian is right, I totally hated my job, hated my boss, hated pretty much the entire company, and quit in 5 months. I was pretty disappointed. I'm still cautious about getting back i…

That sounds horrible. I'm still at university anyway, but it seems to me that there should be a mechanism for detecting these companies and shutting them down , if they don't recover. I sincerely hope you'll find a job (industry, academia or otherwise) doing something you like doing in a place that you like. Good luck!

Let's be clear. By "shutting them down", you mean legally prohibiting anyone from voluntarily agreeing to work differently than one university student (who doesn't even work there) would prefer, am I right?

What should be the penalty for those who try to do it anyway?

Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#182

Post by harrygallagher4 »

mamon wrote: post #75
harrygallagher4 wrote: post #3

My first programming job (actually, just my first job) was technically a 40 hour/week job, but in the employee handbook it said something along the lines of: "The day is typically regarded as 8AM to 8PM." They didn't pay very well either. Brian is right, I totally hated my job, hated my boss, hated pretty much the entire company, and quit in 5 months. I was pretty disappointed. I'm still cautious about getting back i…

> "The day is typically regarded as 8AM to 8PM." correct me if I'm wrong, but usually such statement means that you can choose your own 8 hour timeframe to work. So you can work 08 AM - 4 PM, or 11AM - 7 PM, or whatever. It is not expressing expectation of 12h workday.

They definitely meant 12 hour days. I got there at 9 and left at 6:30 for the first few days (I hadn't read the handbook) and got an email from my boss about "leaving early"

Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#183

Post by harrygallagher4 »

a3n wrote: post #10
harrygallagher4 wrote: post #3

My first programming job (actually, just my first job) was technically a 40 hour/week job, but in the employee handbook it said something along the lines of: "The day is typically regarded as 8AM to 8PM." They didn't pay very well either. Brian is right, I totally hated my job, hated my boss, hated pretty much the entire company, and quit in 5 months. I was pretty disappointed. I'm still cautious about getting back i…

> "The day is typically regarded as 8AM to 8PM." Did the building have nets under the windows?

It was the first floor! No need for any nets.

Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#184

Post by doubleblock »

enraged_camel wrote: post #52
drblast wrote: post #11

I seem to be alone in this, but I actually do about 25-30 hours of actual programming work each week. And that's sit-down-and-concentrate-and-build-shit work. I'm pretty ruthless about declining extraneous meetings and I keep my door closed most of the time. I think it's reasonable to have 25% of a 40-hour week be for meetings, helping other people, eating lunch, sitting in on interviews, and learning/trying out new…

It's basically a matter of how much control one has over their work environment and distractions. I work from home, and I have a high enough social standing in my company that I can simply decline incoming phone calls whenever I want. As a result, like you, I can get a shitload of work done. Most developers aren't so lucky though. That's why the productivity norm in our industry is closer to 10 hours per week, maybe…

I went from a fortune 500 to a self-supporting start-up. I was surprised not to have a phone on my desk. It didn't take long to realize how great it is not to have a desk phone.

Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#185

Post by LoSboccacc »

olgeorge wrote: post #175
lloeki wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the outside, it looks like I'm fiddling. Indeed, sometimes I'm stuck "watching" something on the screen (it looks like I'm watching a movie) maybe for extended periods of time. Then suddenly I jump and grab a pen and paper, and in a couple of minutes I get everything I've been building up written down, which helps me in solving the last details. The opposite is true too, sometimes I'm in a bind and can't get m…

What are you guys coding that makes you think so much? Most of the time I either code or research a particular tech. I rarely have to think about stuff too much...

when the codebase is old enough, you need to think about all the dependencies of every component you change when adding features. that's the major drag to me.

also, browser compatibility, that also requires load of prep work because of the layers of workaround to get stuff working right.

Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#186

Post by rorykoehler »

aerovistae wrote: post #170
rorykoehler wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exceptionalism is a strange beast. Thinking this way only hurts society at large.

Thing what way? How is this exceptionalism? How have I implied in any way that the United States is different or better than other countries?

Sorry I was agreeing with you... Can see how you could read that in a way I didn't intend. My point was that by thinking the American way is the best already it stops healthy feedback loops.

Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#187

Post by dbg31415 »

chrisdone wrote: post #84
dbg31415 wrote: post #34

> No programmers really work 60-80 hours a week, especially in a 5 day span. That is a 12-16 hour day, 5 days a week. Who works only 5 days a week? Saturday... sure take the day, but many of us end up working Sundays to get everything ready for Monday mornings. Making sure all the issues are prepared, reports for the past week have been written, all of our tasks for the week are defined and prioritized... 8-10 hours…

You're (presumably) being paid for 5 days a week at 8 hours per day. If you cannot manage your time reasonably within this period, consider doing some research into that. If you can and yet your employers expect more time, then you're probably being exploited. Either way this is not normal.

I think it's very normal for anyone who owns their own business.

Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#188

Post by solipsism »

EliRivers wrote: post #65
solipsism wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. Infrequent "crunch time" is the norm in the video game industry, with regular hours outside of crunch time (if you're lucky enough to be employed at that time). Standard expectations of 12 hour days is most certainly not the norm.

I don't want to misread "if you're lucky enough to be employed at that time"; are you saying that the games industry now hires labour for crunch time and then fires everyone afterwards? The games industry has had a poor reputation for a long time but I don't want to unfairly interpret people if things are better these days.

As a game moves toward completion they will hire up. As deadlines start coming up (e.g. milestones negotiated with publishers) you'll experience crunch times. When the game finally is released, they have a swollen staff that they don't need anymore as they transition into the planning/exploratory phases of the next game. They absolutely lay people off at that time.

This has been the case for a long time and is no secret.

Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#189

Post by synicalx »

drblast wrote: post #11

I seem to be alone in this, but I actually do about 25-30 hours of actual programming work each week. And that's sit-down-and-concentrate-and-build-shit work. I'm pretty ruthless about declining extraneous meetings and I keep my door closed most of the time. I think it's reasonable to have 25% of a 40-hour week be for meetings, helping other people, eating lunch, sitting in on interviews, and learning/trying out new…

> I keep my door closed most of the time

What I wouldn't give for a door... I'm not even allowed to wear headphones, so I get to field constant walk ups whilst listening to an entire high ceiling-ed office full of executive assistants all screaming at each other across the floor.

Re: How do you make programmers work 60-80 hours per week?

#190

Post by canes123456 »

hnnsj wrote: post #127
skrebbel wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of business are you in that the entire company except the CEO is programmin full time?

Online productivity tools. No investments, profitable, linear but steady growth, minimal marketing, small team size, close to zero process. Works great for us programmers. And the CEO does a lot of programming as well, if I'd venture a guess I'd say about 40-50%.

I still can't imagine that this makes sense. Even if everyone is a developer on paper, you should be spending more time on all the other parts of running a company. CEO still writing code half of the time when everyone else is writing code all the time puts it over the edge. Don't you also need Designers, QA, Ops, Marketing, or CFO?
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