If I'd count all the over hours that I did for my current company over the years, I think it would be the equivalent of one year of work. And yes, most of that wasn't necessary but bad planning and a fraked up process.
"Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
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Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
#22Routine long hours are sign of a broken process. Rare spats of long hours due to abnormal events is not an issue
Or even due to awesome coding. I would hate to miss out on my occasional bouts of can't-drag-me-away-from-the-keyboard inspiration simply because someone "fixed" my work ethic and shut the office at 5pm.
But yeah, I appreciate the sentiment that no-one should be allowed to pillage their workers' evenings and weekends simply because they don't want to tell their boss "I promised something I couldn't deliver."
Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
#23The amusing thing to me is that the question was closed as offtopic. Stackexchange is slowly turning into a Usenet/Wikipedia hybrid.
Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
#24The amusing thing to me is that the question was closed as offtopic. Stackexchange is slowly turning into a Usenet/Wikipedia hybrid.
All of the best StackExchange questions are the ones that are closed for being too chatty.
Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
#25This broken process ships a lot of games :(
I used to think so too, but the truth is that it ships at most 7 or so games, the rest being copies of that with slight (mostly trivial) variations.
I don't know how many hours Braids creator worked, but I have a feeling that it was a lot less than a deathmarch.
Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
#26It's nice that LinkedIn has a great process: regression testing and the like, but what if you work in an environment where you can't afford to test every single little thing, and where business models, let alone requirements change constantly (ie. a startup)? What if a competitor just launched a feature that will put you out of business if you don't implement the same thing in 48 hours? What if there is a mission-cri…
These are nice excuses managers give to rally workers to work overtime.
Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
#27It's nice that LinkedIn has a great process: regression testing and the like, but what if you work in an environment where you can't afford to test every single little thing, and where business models, let alone requirements change constantly (ie. a startup)? What if a competitor just launched a feature that will put you out of business if you don't implement the same thing in 48 hours? What if there is a mission-cri…
What if you work in a construction site where they cannot afford helmets?
And what difference does it make to call it a cultural thing? People are still getting their heads injured.
Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
#28Routine long hours are sign of a broken process. Rare spats of long hours due to abnormal events is not an issue
Or even due to awesome coding. I would hate to miss out on my occasional bouts of can't-drag-me-away-from-the-keyboard inspiration simply because someone "fixed" my work ethic and shut the office at 5pm. But yeah, I appreciate the sentiment that no-one should be allowed to pillage their workers' evenings and weekends simply because they don't want to tell their boss "I promised something I couldn't deliver."
Courage is underrated in the tech industry.
Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
#29Ah, so this is why it takes LinkedIn forever to add new features.
Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
#30What do long hours often represent? Enterprise: Incompetent management, lazy co-workers, and spoiled users. Small Business: Tough competition and limited resources. Startup: Taking advantage of opportunites that may not pass this way again.
That's very succinct, witty, and more or less diametrically opposed to the point of the OP on StackOverflow. Did you read it? :-)
He's making the point that regular long hours are always a sign of bad management.
I'd tend to agree. Any business can be run in balance with a reasonable lifestyle. If you're working overtime very often on your own business, it's either because you're incompetent, or lazy, or greedy, or failing (see 'incompetent'). If you're working regular long hours on someone else's business, it's because they are incompetent/lazy/greedy.