Why it's OK to leave a tech job at 5 p.m.
-
I've learned over the years that most engineers, myself in included, are good for about six hours of concentrated mental work a day. When making educational films, I learned that adults become increasingly unproductive after ten hours, even if they aren't working very hard [due to circumstances, such as waiting for the rain to stop.] Minors are good for half that. This doesn't mean they won't try, but the quality of their work markedly declines. What suffers the most are the details.
Joe Woodbury wrote:
When making educational films
Educational? ;) Right :-D
Failure is not an option; it's the default selection.
-
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/16/tech/web/cashmore-facebook-sandberg/index.html?hpt=hp_bn11[^] I have learned long ago I'm much more productive by not working long hours. Of course there are those occasions when you do need to work extra, but that is the exception, not the rule. I've often told client managers that I don't work overtime because of their poor planning.
Failure is not an option; it's the default selection.
-
Joe Woodbury wrote:
When making educational films
Educational? ;) Right :-D
Failure is not an option; it's the default selection.
I would have made more money had they been "educational."
-
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/16/tech/web/cashmore-facebook-sandberg/index.html?hpt=hp_bn11[^] I have learned long ago I'm much more productive by not working long hours. Of course there are those occasions when you do need to work extra, but that is the exception, not the rule. I've often told client managers that I don't work overtime because of their poor planning.
Failure is not an option; it's the default selection.
Totally. I worked for a few years under a totalitarian, workaholic, hero boss. He expected me to be a workaholic hero underling. Until one year, in September, after we all acknowledged the contingency time in the project was all burned up, we took on another customer and he said "you are going to be working some long days and weekends for the rest of the year." At that point I made a rule to ignore all hints at required overtime. The result? Healthier me, reduction in bug reports, pay rise...
-
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/16/tech/web/cashmore-facebook-sandberg/index.html?hpt=hp_bn11[^] I have learned long ago I'm much more productive by not working long hours. Of course there are those occasions when you do need to work extra, but that is the exception, not the rule. I've often told client managers that I don't work overtime because of their poor planning.
Failure is not an option; it's the default selection.
Well, for many years I worked a 8 - 5 job. I rode in a car pool, so unless previous arrangements were made, I had to leave with the car pool or be left behind. I was also a single parent raising 3 children, so my time at home was not negotiable. Once or twice someone told me I should be working more hours and my response was: "If I can't get my job done in a 8 - 5 work day, I need to find a job I'm capable of doing."
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
-
Couldn't agree more: I've worked an 8 hour day for years. If overtime is required (once or twice that I can recall in the last 10 years) then I'm willing to be flexible; however, I just don't think that extra hours get the job done, they just satisfy a bureaucratic need.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
mark merrens wrote:
however, I just don't think that extra hours get the job done, they just satisfy a bureaucratic need.
Get given a 6-hour project at 4:50PM that has to be completed by 8:00AM the following day, and tell me that working extra hours doesn't get the job done :sigh:
-= Reelix =-
-
I make a rule: Never Work More Than 8 Hours! I find that is more than enough in any week.
--------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live
8 hours a week sounds good to me :cool:
-
mark merrens wrote:
however, I just don't think that extra hours get the job done, they just satisfy a bureaucratic need.
Get given a 6-hour project at 4:50PM that has to be completed by 8:00AM the following day, and tell me that working extra hours doesn't get the job done :sigh:
-= Reelix =-
-
I've learned over the years that most engineers, myself in included, are good for about six hours of concentrated mental work a day. When making educational films, I learned that adults become increasingly unproductive after ten hours, even if they aren't working very hard [due to circumstances, such as waiting for the rain to stop.] Minors are good for half that. This doesn't mean they won't try, but the quality of their work markedly declines. What suffers the most are the details.
As much as I'd love to agree, there are some that ruin this curve and can work 14+ hours a day productively, albeit only for a month or two at a time before needing a multi-day break (this does not include weekends)
-
Couldn't agree more: I've worked an 8 hour day for years. If overtime is required (once or twice that I can recall in the last 10 years) then I'm willing to be flexible; however, I just don't think that extra hours get the job done, they just satisfy a bureaucratic need.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
Agree completely, the more you achieve the more you are expected to achieve. My first development roll we were doing 100+ hour weeks for about 2 years :zzz: The quality of the code in that business was poor to say the best and costed the company much more to rectify the issue. I pretty much work 8 hours a day now and never find myself in the same situation, its also made me a much better developer as you think about how you do things rather than just knocking code out to get something done. Increasing hours is all about diminishing returns...
-
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/16/tech/web/cashmore-facebook-sandberg/index.html?hpt=hp_bn11[^] I have learned long ago I'm much more productive by not working long hours. Of course there are those occasions when you do need to work extra, but that is the exception, not the rule. I've often told client managers that I don't work overtime because of their poor planning.
Failure is not an option; it's the default selection.
I'm of the opinion, and it is my opinion, that overtime is nothing more than slavery. I worked at a place years ago where the company required the cancellation of vacations that had been planned months in advance. I was told that the deposits were reimbursed. OK so the company reimbursed the deposits. How do you reimburse your family for the disappointment of not being able to go on the much anticipated trip? I don't care if you get paid good money or not. No employer has the right to treat their employees with such a slave master attitude as that. When an employer can demand that you work overtime, or cancel your vacation time, you are no longer an employee, you are a slave plain and simple. By the way. The government backs up these employer attitudes to a big degree.
-
"tell me that working extra hours doesn't get the job done" - true, but it also encourages the bad management / planning that got you into that situation in the first place ;)
It encourages them to give you a salary lol. For example we have 9 months for 5 releases, and each one is a lot of work, so every year the 5th release get's rushed, and requires a lot of overtime. We all know it's gonna happen every year, and every attempt(bureaucratic and practical) has failed to solve the issue.
-
It encourages them to give you a salary lol. For example we have 9 months for 5 releases, and each one is a lot of work, so every year the 5th release get's rushed, and requires a lot of overtime. We all know it's gonna happen every year, and every attempt(bureaucratic and practical) has failed to solve the issue.
-
Agree completely, the more you achieve the more you are expected to achieve. My first development roll we were doing 100+ hour weeks for about 2 years :zzz: The quality of the code in that business was poor to say the best and costed the company much more to rectify the issue. I pretty much work 8 hours a day now and never find myself in the same situation, its also made me a much better developer as you think about how you do things rather than just knocking code out to get something done. Increasing hours is all about diminishing returns...
Phil_Murray wrote:
the more you achieve the more you are expected to achieve
My roommate had used some tricks he'd worked out to cut his work in half. Unfortunately he shared it with his co-workers, one of whom had to go and brag to management about the accomplishment. Soon he was doing twice the work in the original eight hours.
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
-
mark merrens wrote:
however, I just don't think that extra hours get the job done, they just satisfy a bureaucratic need.
Get given a 6-hour project at 4:50PM that has to be completed by 8:00AM the following day, and tell me that working extra hours doesn't get the job done :sigh:
-= Reelix =-
-
mark merrens wrote:
however, I just don't think that extra hours get the job done, they just satisfy a bureaucratic need.
Get given a 6-hour project at 4:50PM that has to be completed by 8:00AM the following day, and tell me that working extra hours doesn't get the job done :sigh:
-= Reelix =-
If that's a common practice at your workplace, I recommend changing jobs. Such things happening occasionally are unavoidable. But if they're frequent, somebody in management doesn't do his/her job. Bad management is the safest way make a workplace suck.
-
exactly, I have made this a non negotiable. Sure I will work the occasional weekend and I will work a week or so here and there of 80 hours when required but as soon as this gets to be the norm. I am looking. I have been very forthright with my employers about this. That isn't to say I don't average about 45 hours a week. But I barely ever work more than 50. So that is that. I think the thing here for employers is that tech jobs are easy to come by and tech people well they are not so easy to come by. So at the moment we are able to actually be treated as a normal person again. At least for awhile.
To err is human to really mess up you need a computer
You're too permissive. An 80 hours week should never happen - any work done during an 80 hours week is shitty at best. I have noticed this on myself. Nobody asked me to, but while I was working on a project I really liked, I started working 16 hours a day regularly. I think it was the third day when I caught myself writing spaghetti code. It still happens to me that I can't get a bug fixed, or a feature implemented as fast as I'd like. It's very tempting to do long hours in such cases (especially since I don't plan my time, but I plan my work, i.e. I set up a list of tasks to get done each day, regardless of the time it takes). I repeatedly find out that's a stupid idea: you stay at work until midnight, trying to get something done, go home when it's still not working, and fix it the second day in 15 minutes.
-
You should do the work you're being paid for. For most of us that's 9-5 or similar (it's 7½ hours plus lunchtime for us, so 9-5.30 if you take a nice long hour lunch like me), by choice because that gives us enough money to afford life and enough time to live it. Unless you've intentionally chosen to work more for overtime pay (at some times in our lives that is a good thing to do), you shouldn't, and you should be prepared to make that argument to your manager. Fortunately, my company is excellent and there is no pressure to give extra free hours to them, and, on the rare occasions that there is external time pressure applied, people get compensated for it.
I think you're on one hand saying something very smart, on the other hand missing a point. "You should do the work you're paid for." That's exactly the point: the employer doesn't pay you for the time spent at work (or at least shouldn't), but for what you produce. But then you go on with considerations about time, equivalencing work with time spent, which is plain wrong. Which is why I also consider payment for overtime not a good idea. It's an incentive for people to spend more time at work, but this doesn't guarantee that more work gets done. If you don't get to finish your assignments in the regular working time, you're either doing something wrong, or your manager is stupid and doesn't know shit about planning. Either way, overtime will not solve the real problem. Either you need to to learn to work smarter, or your manager needs to learn about planning.
-
I'm of the opinion, and it is my opinion, that overtime is nothing more than slavery. I worked at a place years ago where the company required the cancellation of vacations that had been planned months in advance. I was told that the deposits were reimbursed. OK so the company reimbursed the deposits. How do you reimburse your family for the disappointment of not being able to go on the much anticipated trip? I don't care if you get paid good money or not. No employer has the right to treat their employees with such a slave master attitude as that. When an employer can demand that you work overtime, or cancel your vacation time, you are no longer an employee, you are a slave plain and simple. By the way. The government backs up these employer attitudes to a big degree.
Regardless of the moral or ethical standpoint, overtime is plain stupid. It destroys motivation, it decreases quality, and it costs more than it's worth. Think of how a Swiss milk farmer treats his cows: optimal feeding, perfectly cleaned and heated stables, milking at regular hours, and up to the optimal amount. This is why Swiss mil farmers have the highest milk productions and the highest ROI in the world. Similarly, an employer which treats his employees the same way (optimal tools for the work, optimal duration of work, optimal workplace) will get him the highest ROI possible. Overtime will only decrease the ROI.
-
Regardless of the moral or ethical standpoint, overtime is plain stupid. It destroys motivation, it decreases quality, and it costs more than it's worth. Think of how a Swiss milk farmer treats his cows: optimal feeding, perfectly cleaned and heated stables, milking at regular hours, and up to the optimal amount. This is why Swiss mil farmers have the highest milk productions and the highest ROI in the world. Similarly, an employer which treats his employees the same way (optimal tools for the work, optimal duration of work, optimal workplace) will get him the highest ROI possible. Overtime will only decrease the ROI.
I don't disagree with your point. The problem however is that employers tend to look at the short term rather than the long term benefits they receive from employees. It's all about that buck that can be gotten right now rather than the long term benefit that both experience and healthy employees can bring. Unfortunately for the employee, he or she only has one finite body that can take only a finite amount of abuse before it dies. The employer figures that to be the employees problem after all, they can always get another employee. From your perspective, an employer will do what is best for the bottom line. It is unfortunate that your view has proven time and again to be wrong. The 2008 market collapse shows us that even when dealing from a profit motive, employers are not going to do what is right. The past few years I heard a continuous cry against regulation. There is to much regulation. It was however, the removal of a regulation in 2000 that allowed the financial community to exercise the stupidity that lead to the 2008 crash. When I hear of a regulation that is on the books that seems to be obviously silly, I always ask my self: What were people doing that required that law to be passed? Contrary to what corporate America would have us believe, regulations in America are generally passed as the result of someone getting hurt or injured due to some other one not following what should be an obvious case of common sense. Prior to the implementation of environmental regulations that protect the Great Lakes, companies spewed pollutants in it to the degree that that the entire fishing industry collapsed. The lakes were so polluted that they could not support life. I have noticed that when people complain about to many regulations, they are always speaking in a general term which makes their statement of to many regulations a lie. There may be regulations on the books that are outdated or no longer apply because a specific industry no longer uses a given technology, to say however, that there are just to many regulations is to imply that people have a right to damage the environment, add poison to food, not implement safety policies that protect employees and the general public from getting injured or killed. Yes, I speak from a moral and ethical perspective which you may or may not like. The alternative however, is the ceiling of a tunnel collapsing on a car killing the occupants inside. The alternative is the collapse of the global market. The alternative is finding out that the property you