Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
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Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
#2[deleted]
Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
#3You should be paid to do a fixed amount of work (generate a certain amount of value for your employer), not work a fixed number of hours. If you can get that work done in 10 hours a week, everybody wins. If you need to work 70 hours a week to do that work, well, maybe you're not a good fit for the job.
Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
#4You should be paid to do a fixed amount of work (generate a certain amount of value for your employer), not work a fixed number of hours. If you can get that work done in 10 hours a week, everybody wins. If you need to work 70 hours a week to do that work, well, maybe you're not a good fit for the job.
How do you consider the factor "good work"? You can finish a job quickly, but it'll bite you (or a coworker) in the ass later, or you can do the job well, but take you longer.
As a programmer, I can't thing of a worse way of management than the former. You'd have to start defining criteria for "good work", and then spend tons of time reviewing. Nightmare.
Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
#5which is not all that common in this industry
In context, it sounds like he means "which is not uncommon in this industry."
Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
#6You should be paid to do a fixed amount of work (generate a certain amount of value for your employer), not work a fixed number of hours. If you can get that work done in 10 hours a week, everybody wins. If you need to work 70 hours a week to do that work, well, maybe you're not a good fit for the job.
^I'm inclined to agree with you. There's definitely NOT an economy of scale when it comes to developer productivity. Sure, my company has some guys making $60K a year, but they certainly get a lot less than half or a third as much as the senior-level folks. I've got a lot more to say on this, perhaps a blog entry is in order.
Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
#7This is a rant that's a bit all over the place.
The author points out a lot of exceptions (eg working at a startup or somewhere where you might get something out of it). If you take out all those exceptions, you basically end up with the crap jobs.
The real problems with a crap job isn't the unpaid overtimes... it's that it's a crap jobs.
The fact is though, you get as much out of pretty much anything in life as you put in. If you want to working 9-5 5 days a week, you can probably find a job that'll let you do that if you try, which is fine, but I probably wouldn't expect anything but stagnating in it.
I too have been a contractor. Never again. It's the ultimate in transactional work [1]. When I did do it though, I always negotiated an hourly rate. Employers love a daily rate because what is a day exactly? An hour is unambiguous.
Health insurance in the US is a problem. This is known. The lack of vacation here is (IMHO) a problem too.
I now have a great job and I have it because I put in effort (both at work and outside). YMMV.
Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
#8What about the part where programmers work overtime, but not because they are demanded to?
I consistently see programmers, even in my own team, who happily stay 60-70 hours per week because the idea/concept they are working on means something significant to them.
I find this phenomenon to be the exception of what your post has mentioned. Although the post was mostly accurate, I encounter this exception on a daily basis.
While those 60-70 hrs./week aren't at 100% efficiency, the idea that a programmer will stay the extra time to produce high quality work while maintaining their own personal life says a lot about their view of their job and career. To some, it's just that - a job. However, others see it as an art (just as any profession, I suppose) and strive to increase their skills - they understand that invested time equals increased knowledge and a more refined skill set.
Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
#9Like the old saying goes:
"I work for money. If you want loyalty, get a dog."
Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You
#10When I worked for a big company, I had a very simple rule:
If I make a promise to my team that I can reasonably keep, I owe it to them to do so.
I'd generally aim to under-promise and over-deliver, while feeling like I'm making a comprable (or bigger!) contribution in comparison to my peers. After some practice at this, I got reasonably good at estimating work. I'd work 20 to 50 hours per week depending on how accurately I estimate, usually aiming for (an achieving) about 35 hours of work. Only once or twice did I ever feel like I really put in any serious "overtime" and I blame that on estimation inexperience.
I made it a point to explain this philosophy (sans actual target hours) to every manager I've ever had. I always fed them the "Work/Life Balance" party line and reminded them that if I wanted my work to be my life, I'd join a startup (I have since founded one). They all seemed to appreciate my being forthcoming.
Once or twice I got a panicked email. The team was going to miss a deadline unless I stepped up to help out! Each time I replied that I had expressed my concerns about scope and timeline during the planning meetings. I'd remind the panicked person that we could simply cut the feature (always an option for a previously shipped product) and would offer my help and time in doing so. No one ever took me up on it.