Earlier today, someone told me that I've "drunk the kool-aid" of my employers, Pivotal Labs. Well, it happens that I decided to work for Labs after visiting the Facebook campus. Literally while I was driving back to SF from Palo Alto. At Labs I work for 40 hours per week. Not an on-paper 40 hours -- actually 40 hours . When I was new to the company I found myself one night on a train to Philadelphia for a personal tr…
I was a Software Engineering intern on an ads product team at Facebook last summer. My experience was almost exactly the opposite of what you assume here. Most people worked 7-8 hour days. I stayed plenty of late nights because I was dead-set on getting a full-time offer, but I was literally the only one on my entire floor most nights (including interns). On the off chance someone stopped in late and saw me, they wer…
That's actually a point I implied but didn't expand.
If you don't set a standard, any one employee's experience is going to depend on the local subculture.
So it's a lottery. Maybe I'm in the team composed of grizzled 3-4 year veterans, who've seen it all, some of whom have young families or hobbies outside of work.
Or I fluke into the team of whizkids who moved to Palo Alto 3 months ago, straight out of college, and who have no social life and nothing to do except work at the most exciting stuff they've ever done in their lives.
Alternatively, I can work at a company where 40 hours is always 40 hours, no matter what project you're on, no matter what your life situation is, no matter how long you've worked there -- and regardless of when the Big Project Is Launching.