11–20 of 37 posts
I expected to see more night owls in the "Computer and mathematical" category, but it looks like we're more conventional than the average.
I expected to see more night owls in the "Computer and mathematical" category, but it looks like we're more conventional than the average.
The vast majority of computer programming is done in "stodgy", "boring" settings, like offices and for government projects, so this really shouldn't be a surprise for that field. The "work anywhere when you like, just get your 8 in" concept is relatively niche, even in the Valley "glamor" bubble.
Do 9-5 jobs with paid lunch exist? Everything I've seen is either 8-5 or 9-6 or some variation of that. Heck, where I am now is 9 hour days plus they encourage you to take lunch, 7-5. Half-day Friday though.
It's the same with my vacation. In my agreement it said "vacation: as you see fit". I hope to use that the same way, responsibly.
It's not for everyone obviously. Some people don't work the same way and will take advantage.
Do 9-5 jobs with paid lunch exist? Everything I've seen is either 8-5 or 9-6 or some variation of that. Heck, where I am now is 9 hour days plus they encourage you to take lunch, 7-5. Half-day Friday though.
Realtors, car sales, etc, all work weekends. In tech, what about weekend maintenance windows?
Admittedly, that's probably less of a thing now we have redundancy and continuous deployment practises; the concept of a late night / weekend change window is diminishing in my personal experience. I'm intrigued if that's true across the tech industry.
Do 9-5 jobs with paid lunch exist? Everything I've seen is either 8-5 or 9-6 or some variation of that. Heck, where I am now is 9 hour days plus they encourage you to take lunch, 7-5. Half-day Friday though.
I work any hours I want basically, I just have to show up to weekly meetings. But I work for a startup where the success of the business is linked to my efforts. So it behooves me to eat a quick lunch and return to work. It's the same with my vacation. In my agreement it said "vacation: as you see fit". I hope to use that the same way, responsibly. It's not for everyone obviously. Some people don't work the same way…
As you stated, it's not for everyone. I went from a position with a mandatory half hour lunch to one where I had an optional lunch up to an hour long. I find that I'm much more productive when I take a full hour for lunch, and then stay an extra half hour after when I would normally leave. It really breaks up my day, and time doesn't seem to drag on towards the end of the day.
It also helps that I live close to work, so I can go home and play with my dog for a while. She has really good ideas, and has helped me get through some conundrums.
Legal skips lunches the most. Engineers are most likely to be in office at peak hours along with legal and finance.
I'd be interested in seeing a weekday version of this data. Realtors, car sales, etc, all work weekends. In tech, what about weekend maintenance windows? Admittedly, that's probably less of a thing now we have redundancy and continuous deployment practises; the concept of a late night / weekend change window is diminishing in my personal experience. I'm intrigued if that's true across the tech industry.
Odd, my experience is exactly the opposite. Increase complexity breads increasing numbers of potential problems, which causes partial outages at unpredictable times and for unpredictable reasons (or reasons so complex they are perceived as unpredictable).
Now are these "user impacting?" Often times, no. But they will become user impacting if left for too long (e.g. new instances aren't able to connect to a database, but existing ones are connected: classic DNS problems). So people are still waking up in the middle of the night to fix stuff when the alerts start streaming in.
The only thing that has REALLY changed is that now you can often fix these issues from your bedroom in your PJs. Since the AWS, Azure, Rackspace, etc console doesn't care where you are or what you're wearing.
But companies are getting no better at actually having around the clock staff. When they used to out-source a dedicated server the data centre would employ 24/7 staff on real shifts, Amazon/Rackspace/Google/etc do the same, but for the software side of things you rarely see it (never?). Most companies just expect employees to be on-call 24/7 as part of their salary (unpaid overtime essentially).
I expected to see more night owls in the "Computer and mathematical" category, but it looks like we're more conventional than the average.
The vast majority of computer programming is done in "stodgy", "boring" settings, like offices and for government projects, so this really shouldn't be a surprise for that field. The "work anywhere when you like, just get your 8 in" concept is relatively niche, even in the Valley "glamor" bubble.