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"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."

#71

Post by MartinCron »

Hisoka wrote: post #7

It'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…

but what if you work in an environment where you can't afford to test every single little thing

What if you were performing surgery in an environment where you couldn't afford to sterilize every single instrument?

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#72

Post by LargeWu »

Hisoka wrote: post #7

It'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…

* 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)?*

Constantly changing requirements are exactly why you want tests. Not only do they help you find regression bugs when requirements change, but they help tremendously in writing code that is easy to maintain. If you can't test a piece of code, it's a red flag that you can't easily change it either.

Furthermore, I don't buy the notion that writing test code adds significant time to the development process. I do not have metrics, but I would argue that a good test suite actually reduces total development time, since the time writing tests is more than offset by the time saved testing manually and fixing bugs later.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#73

Post by AlexC04 »

Honestly I think the real answer is "if you're asking that question, it's time to find a new job"

I've been through this very same ringer recently and strongly believe that changing from within is far more trouble, far more stressful and far more difficult than the effort is worth.

If you've got so many options, leave.

I've very happy in my new role and it took getting out of the old one to fix it.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#74

Post by yrislerlhf »

edw519 wrote: post #13

What 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.

Relationship: Being in love.

Personal Project: Mental illness.

Family: Organized crime.

Farm: Harvest time.

Anime: Watching Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#77

Post by quizbiz »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #44
orlick wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our startup team of 10 has kept pretty strict time logs for the past 3 years. We have an official policy of 40 hour work weeks, but yeah, no developers are able to have that much productive time. Usually we see about 25-30 hours of solid development time, 5 hours of meeting/admin time, and 5 hours of lunches/coffee/break time.

I'd like to hear more about the choice to keep strict time logs in a startup environment. Especially strict ones that provide enough granularity to see 5 hours of break time/wk.

Me too. (Another case where seeing up votes would be useful)

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#78

Post by trb »

swombat wrote: post #65
trb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think it's a bit unfair to call everyone who works long hours incompetent? I've seen point two that edw519 made a few times. If there's not enough work to pay for another employee, but just enough to pay for your kids college tuition if you make a lot of overtime, what should you do? Growing your business can take years before you can relax a little.

If the business can't grow and it's taking all your time, it's a crap business. Do something else with your time - no one's forcing you to continue flogging that particular horse. In today's world of opportunity, there are multitudes of ways to run a business that doesn't destroy your life to make a meagre profit... if you persist in running an unprofitable business which takes all your time, then, I guess that would…

This breaks down as soon as you have dependencies, e.g. a family, as you can't simply abandon your source of income. But aside from that, just because it takes a couple of years to grow a business into profitability doesn't make it not worthwhile, even if you have to put in a lot of work during those years. A large customer with an gradual payment system based on accreditation would be such a scenario.

Of course it's incompetent to cling to an unprofitable undertaking, but there are valid reasons for working overtime over an extended period.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#79

Post by daeken »

swombat wrote: post #63
webwright wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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')." Of all of the successful people I've met (measured in cash, influence, etc), I can't think of ANY who weren't pretty seriously married to their work. I guess many of those people fall into the "greedy" camp and are doing it for the money. But I think most of them do…

I think that's a myth of the startup world (a persistent, but mostly incorrect myth). I know successful people with both balanced and unbalanced lives... and the former are definitely happier. I'm not convinced that regular long hours lead to a more competitive business. Particularly when it comes to running a business (as opposed to being a contractor or freelancer, which is a completely different proposition), spen…

I've been both of those people. I spent 5 years working every waking minute of the day; even if I wasn't at my computer, I was thinking about what had to be done next and constantly anxious to get back to it. I ruined several relationships and generally had a piss-poor life because of it.

Now, though, I work my ass off at my day job, I spend a couple hours a night and the weekends working on my startup, and I spend as much time as I possibly can with my girlfriend. I'm a much happier person, and I'm still making tons of progress in life in general.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#80

Post by jrockway »

Androsynth wrote: post #51

My biggest problem with long hours (aside from the long hours themselves), is that like most programmers, I'm not constantly productive for 10 hours a day. It frustrates me that I have to sit in my desk for long periods where I'm unproductive before my muse hits and then I enter hugely productive periods (which often take place outside of normal business hours). I don't think some m-f, 9-5 union type situation is the…

Work somewhere else? It's 3pm and I'm just now ready to head in to the office.
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