Overtime is Morphine
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Overtime is Morphine
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Re: Overtime is Morphine
#2True story: a CMM Level 5 software organization had precisely the exact same issue. There was a PM, who would literally spend the entire day wasting time and start real work around 5 PM. Then work till late night.
Once he advised me, "Always make sure that you send an e-mail, late at night to anybody in the organization, before you call it day."
"Why?"
To make it short, per his advise, the single most important thing about those e-mails, wasn't the contents, but just the timestamp.
Re: Overtime is Morphine
#3True story: a CMM Level 5 software organization had precisely the exact same issue. There was a PM, who would literally spend the entire day wasting time and start real work around 5 PM. Then work till late night. Once he advised me, "Always make sure that you send an e-mail, late at night to anybody in the organization, before you call it day." "Why?" To make it short, per his advise, the single most important thing…
You would think that PM would have learned about the feature that quite a few email systems have to send an email at a particular time! (e.g. Outlook has "Do not deliver before" option).
Re: Overtime is Morphine
#4True story: a CMM Level 5 software organization had precisely the exact same issue. There was a PM, who would literally spend the entire day wasting time and start real work around 5 PM. Then work till late night. Once he advised me, "Always make sure that you send an e-mail, late at night to anybody in the organization, before you call it day." "Why?" To make it short, per his advise, the single most important thing…
You would think that PM would have learned about the feature that quite a few email systems have to send an email at a particular time! (e.g. Outlook has "Do not deliver before" option).
:). The logs at physical security could not be faked: they used to have a pen and paper system; it was a little more than a decade ago.
Re: Overtime is Morphine
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
You would think that PM would have learned about the feature that quite a few email systems have to send an email at a particular time! (e.g. Outlook has "Do not deliver before" option).
:). The logs at physical security could not be faked: they used to have a pen and paper system; it was a little more than a decade ago.
The last place I worked, 18 months ago, that required after-hours logs still used pen and paper. Plus, they left the log books out all the time, so it was easy when you signed in to see who else was coming in after hours, going back weeks sometimes.
Re: Overtime is Morphine
#6Simple solution (from the software engineer's perspective): demand overtime pay. If you are officially expected to work 40h/week for certain amount of money, but in practise you're "expected" to work 50h/week, then your real wage is actually 20% lower than what your contract says. And that is pretty similar to theft.
It's time to start comparing wages instead of absolute income.
Re: Overtime is Morphine
#7I like the article, and would love to apply, as "management" in my own company, effective measures to cure the pain instead of treat it. In fact, I generally try to do just that.
But what this is basically suggesting is "locking out" your employer. While I agree that is absolutely what should happen, doing this without the leadership AND the developer in agreement about why sounds like disaster.
I know it's likely impossible to capture all the work and discussion it takes to reshape a company's process in a blog post, but I feel like if I had a dependence on OT in my company (as the "patient"), and a lockout went into effect, I would be focusing on the lockout, not every other problem in the company that caused it (which as management, it's my job to figure those problems out). What is being suggested is basically arm twisting to get what you want :/
That never works when you cause more pain to the company than it's able to alleviate over time. They'll eventually get tired of the pain and move on to another drug unless you succeed in getting them to understand.
I feel like better advice is to tell developers that they need to discuss this with their direct reports, boss, whomever, and talk about the problem and WHY you'll actually make the company better gains at sustainable pace. And by all means, point out and suggest ways for your boss to improve things.
If after educating your "patient" the issue still persists, of course, twist away. But not everyone in this world needs these sorts of tactics to improve their workplace, and even in those workplaces, there are likely more successful ways to cure the pain, not just treat it.
Re: Overtime is Morphine
#8Simple solution (from the software engineer's perspective): demand overtime pay. If you are officially expected to work 40h/week for certain amount of money, but in practise you're "expected" to work 50h/week, then your real wage is actually 20% lower than what your contract says. And that is pretty similar to theft. It's time to start comparing wages instead of absolute income.
Most SWEs are salary. Overtime laws are different for salaried employees(depending on jurisdiction). A lot of times, you can demand overtime all you want and the employer can simply deny it, and most will. Typically, your only options are to switch employers or file a lawsuit.
Re: Overtime is Morphine
#9Your website breaks the back button.
Re: Overtime is Morphine
#10True story: a CMM Level 5 software organization had precisely the exact same issue. There was a PM, who would literally spend the entire day wasting time and start real work around 5 PM. Then work till late night. Once he advised me, "Always make sure that you send an e-mail, late at night to anybody in the organization, before you call it day." "Why?" To make it short, per his advise, the single most important thing…
You can get the same effect by coming early and making sure people notice that you were in ahead of them. When done correctly, you get the "behind the project"-bonus without overtime.