I encountered the same criticism (not doing overtime) when I was working for a Japanese company even though I'm the only one who is doing 5 projects at the same time and all ahead of schedule with no major issues. I was actually passed over for a promotion because of it. This post brings back bad memories :)
A culture of beer and overtime
21–30 of 212 posts
Re: A culture of beer and overtime
#22> One would mean I would be moving to Palo Alto, California, where I would be joining a well-known, highly successful, technology company. The pay was great, and working there would make any future job hunts virtually non-existent.
in my humble opinion, the only time you should pass up an offer like that is to work on your own startup. after all did you not apply, and interview, and compete fo, and WANT the job? i don't get it.
sorry, it's just too good of an opportunity. jeez. at least someone else got a shot because this guy passed it up.
Re: A culture of beer and overtime
#23What are good questions to ask during an interview to avoid situations like these? How are other people weeding out employers like this one? This sounds like a bad situation that I'm sure we'd all like to avoid.
I make a point of telling them in the interview that I don't work over 40 hours a week. (This may not be strictly true, but I don't want to work for a company that would consider it a problem if it was).
Re: A culture of beer and overtime
#24I'm starting a new policy of not reading posts like this unless they say who the offending company is.
Re: A culture of beer and overtime
#25I don't understand what beer culture has to do with the majority of the post
Re: A culture of beer and overtime
#26What are good questions to ask during an interview to avoid situations like these? How are other people weeding out employers like this one? This sounds like a bad situation that I'm sure we'd all like to avoid.
I make a point of telling them in the interview that I don't work over 40 hours a week. (This may not be strictly true, but I don't want to work for a company that would consider it a problem if it was).
That's another good question to ask: how often is overtime "required"?
You can usually spot it in the job ads themselves (look for "fast-paced," frequent references to "deadlines," and similar language).
Re: A culture of beer and overtime
#27I'm starting a new policy of not reading posts like this unless they say who the offending company is.
How would you enforce said policy without reading the article?
Re: A culture of beer and overtime
#28before he even got to the first "red flag" I started to see red flag patterns. a team that small with its own PM and copywriter, detached executives (plural, and again, with an overall team/copmany size that small, etc.) disadvantages to getting older, but one advantage is accumulating a set of observed good patterns and bad patterns you can start doing pattern matching against. there's a reason some companies specif…
You bring up excellent points. I'm in a very similar situation and I think of it in these terms. Developers are doers of the work and where the payments accrue. If I don't work, we all don't get paid. I don't say that because I don't value sales, which I won't do (because I understand my weakness) but its hard to divorce this mentality when it becomes engrained.
That's also not to say copywriting or design isn't valid but its severely hard to justify a PM when there's a total of 3 cats to wrangle. I imagine his attitude comes from fully understanding he's all but worthless and instead of bending over backwards to make up for the deficiency, jackass syndrome sets in.
Bait and switch seems to be pretty prevalent in our field, whether it is intentional or not. I personally wouldn't name and shame immediately but at some point when the anger subsides, I owe it to the people that come after me to be perfectly honest about this point in time. Can company x grow out of the mire of this? Sure. But this will help others read red flags early before any major damage is done.
Re: A culture of beer and overtime
#29What in the world?
I don't see how anybody tolerates this crap. I wouldn't have lasted a week there. And you better believe there'd be threats of legal action on any withheld pay. It's obvious to me that they're just riding horses into the ground until they get where they want to go.
I also wouldn't have put up with that "You're not 100% committed here," crap. I probably would have laughed in his face. "Look pal, unless you have a specific problem with the job I'm doing, stuff it. Then I'd make a show out of leaving at 5. A company needs to deserve overtime before I'll give it to them. Pulling shit like this is the fastest way of losing it.
It's easy to see the psychological tactic they're pulling, preying on your desire to be part of a team to extract an unreasonable amount of effort out of you. If they're using them on you, then they're probably using them on everybody and working there will be misery. Time to call the other shops and see if they filled their spots yet.