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No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

sahillavingia.com

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Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#221

Post by andruby »

philmcp wrote: post #177
namdnay wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is there basically no variation on this model? I'd be more than happy to work a job for 80% salary for 4 days per week So part time? This is pretty normal in nearly every company I’ve worked in, lots of people take it to spend more time with young kids

For all the companies I've worked at, the developers are all full-time so I envy your industry / location if part-time is common. More generally though, I feel employees almost need an "excuse" to work part time (i.e. some reason such as childcare). I wish for a time when a significant % of developer jobs are advertised as near-full time and that I'm not stereotyped as lazy for applying to them. There's more to life…

Some of my most productive colleagues work 4/5th. They are often more productive than fulltimers.

In most European countries this is normal and not frowned upon. Some countries even protect this option for employees by law.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#222

Post by ryanianian »

boo-ga-ga wrote: post #217

I think the critics who complain about money, pensions and healthcare didn't do proper calculations. Gumroad pays from $50 to $250 per hour. Let's say you get $100 (below average) and work 60 hours per month (one-week vacation every month). This is $6000 per month, which is basically more than enough for a comfortable living in 95% places on the planet. They pay equal money regardless of location, so the proposition…

It's worth noting the hourly rate cuts in half after 20 hours. It's still enough pay for comfortable living, but 60hrs/wk is a lot of work and is decidedly against the lifestyle TFA talks about.

[edit: parent says 60hrs/month. At $100/hr that's $72k/year pre-tax. I don't know how to delete this comment but would if I could.]

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#225

Post by bumby »

mikewarot wrote: post #218
bumby wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely, you have a process that you follow in your own work though? There are formal codified processes and there are informal tribal ones. Often when I hear people have disdain for processes, it’s usually they don’t like someone else’s process. Unfortunately, standardized processes tend to become more necessary as systems get more complicated in order to ensure an operation becomes fault tolerant by not being relian…

>Processes mitigate risk. Processes mitigate risk of repeating a mistake, but they don't prevent new ones, unless you have very wise people building them, and keeping them current. Processes can be thought of as an institutional form of OCD. There are costs, and they shouldn't outweigh the benefits.

>Processes mitigate risk of repeating a mistake, but they don't prevent new ones

I’m not sure I fully agree. Reactive processes prevent recurring mistakes, because they layer on a requirement to close a gap. I think people can go overboard, particularly when they are myopically focused on a single risk in their wheelhouse and miss the big picture.

Better processes can be more proactive. For example, a process requiring a failure-modes-effect-analysis can identify potential faults that have never been experienced. Developers may feel like they don’t need to work on an FMEA because they “know what they’re doing” and miss latent failure modes

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#226

Post by tharne »

ska wrote: post #37
dkdk8283 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love something like this: I loathe the bullshit factory process has become.

Process is one of those things you have whether you think about it or not. It's up to you collectively to decide if it is BS or not, too heavy, too light, etc. I'm not suggesting everyone has the influence to change process much at the place they work, but they idea that there is a single "thing" called process and some places have it and some don't is just dangerously misleading. It is true that process tends to nat…

This is 100% spot on. There's always a process to one's work. It's just a matter of whether you want to be intentional about it or not.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#228

Post by that_guy_iain »

eloff wrote: post #219
cromka wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly doubt that's the case: absolutely none of the contractors employed by the global-brand investment bank I work for use e-mail addresses that are any different than those of the FTEs.

I've encountered this in my work as a contractor. Depends on the company.

I think it also depends on the country because we didn't seem to have it when we were just a German company but when other countries became involved I think we had to implement legal requirements for them.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#229

Post by eloff »

I've been working like this, 16 hours a week for the past year. About 3 hours of that is meetings, and the rest is straight up coding. I don't make a lot of money, but I've never been happier with a job. I honestly don't feel less productive than when I worked full time. I spend the rest of my energy working on a project I intend to turn into a saas business.

I think this kind of thing, where your job doesn't dominate your life should be the future. It's just so much more humane.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#230

Post by autarch »

ryanianian wrote: post #222
boo-ga-ga wrote: post #217

I think the critics who complain about money, pensions and healthcare didn't do proper calculations. Gumroad pays from $50 to $250 per hour. Let's say you get $100 (below average) and work 60 hours per month (one-week vacation every month). This is $6000 per month, which is basically more than enough for a comfortable living in 95% places on the planet. They pay equal money regardless of location, so the proposition…

It's worth noting the hourly rate cuts in half after 20 hours. It's still enough pay for comfortable living, but 60hrs/wk is a lot of work and is decidedly against the lifestyle TFA talks about. [edit: parent says 60hrs/month. At $100/hr that's $72k/year pre-tax. I don't know how to delete this comment but would if I could.]

The parent says 60 hours per _month_. That's 15 per week. Sounds good to me!
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