60-80 hours a week
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I love the opening of the second answer: S
Quote:
erious answer: 80 hours? Seriously? Basically, that's 12 hours per day for 7 days.
Seriously? 7 x 12 = 80? The poster has evidently been working 80+ hours a week and their brain is tired! (or is that Tyred in the US of A?)
PooperPig - Coming Soon
Well if you add the half an hour for lunch and an extra half hour on Sunday, that calculation sort of works.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
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"First, basic, level of motivation is money" Bollocks. Besides, all you need to do to get infinite overtime is remind the guys that "life" is only a foolish anagram of "file", and that no one file is more important than your project to make an app to demonstrate how to download and install VLC.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Not entirely! The cited article said something to the effect that you needed to supply enough money to put bread (and a few cakes!) on the table before you did anything else. A programmer who is wondering where his next meal is coming from (literally or figuratively) is not going to do his/her best work. More pay doesn't magically produce better code, but adequate pay (as defined by the recipient) is a necessary starting point.
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I have put in insane levels of hours in my youth. I am talking 28hrs of straight coding, amped up on cola, chips and sweets. Followed by 6hrs of sleep and an 18hr day, 8hrs sleep, 12hr days for the rest of the week, and slept all weekend. Made the deadline! (we still did not get the contract, LMAO). But I learned an important lesson: Can vs. Should. As a manager, I do NOT want my team working over time! Occasionally, it happens. I allow them to flex the time so that I ACCRUE NO net benefit. In the end, we all need to be Happy AND Productive. Not just Happy we ARE productive!
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About a year ago, the (now ex-) head of our IT department said, during a staff meeting, "everybody raise your hand who's working 40 hours per week." Then, 45, 50, etc, til finally he was the only one with his hand raised. I refused to play along, but the clear, unstated, implication was that "you guys aren't working as hard as me and you should be." The next time I talked to him, I mentioned that if one has to work 80, 90 hour weeks on a consistent basis, they're doing it wrong. Period, full stop, end of statement. Either they don't understand the problems they're being asked to solve, or they're not giving realistic expectations, or management has put someone in a position to fail (oh, hey Bob, we told them you'd deliver this thing with which you have no experience by next week). It didn't really sink in with him; he's one of those people who just really enjoys the stress and being seen as "the man". It does seem to be a little less stressful around here now that he's left. (P.S. I don't want to paint him in an bad light; he is a pretty good guy, it's just that he didn't get that job < life. I sincerely hope he's doing o.k. now.)
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"We get up at 12 and start to work at 1 ... take an hour for lunch at then at 2 we're done, jolly good fun. Ah, ah, ah, oh, oh, oh ... another jolly good day in the land of Oz!"
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I love the opening of the second answer: S
Quote:
erious answer: 80 hours? Seriously? Basically, that's 12 hours per day for 7 days.
Seriously? 7 x 12 = 80? The poster has evidently been working 80+ hours a week and their brain is tired! (or is that Tyred in the US of A?)
PooperPig - Coming Soon
If you divide 80 hours into 7 days it is roughly 11.4 hours a day. If you factor in a half hour meal break, then it works out to be around a 12 hour shift.
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I have done these kind of hours for months on end, though not in the IT world. It was at a corrugated fiberboard container plant where I was a press operator. If we were down an operator, as we were most of the 3-4 years I held that position, the two remaining had to pull 12 hour shifts. Most of the time, the plant ran 13 days at a time, only giving 2 days a month off due to union rules. After a while, you get used to it. The plus side, is that you are so busy making money, you don't have time to spend it! In my earlier years as a programmer, when everything was magical, and before I had a wife, it wasn't uncommon for me lose track of time and code until 1 or 2 in the morning. Anymore, it's rare that I code anything past quitting time, though I do work every Saturday.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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"First, basic, level of motivation is money" Bollocks. Besides, all you need to do to get infinite overtime is remind the guys that "life" is only a foolish anagram of "file", and that no one file is more important than your project to make an app to demonstrate how to download and install VLC.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark_Wallace wrote:
Bollocks.
Certainly a motivator for many people. Of course one must actually define what "money" means in that context. For example HR standing in front a room full of developers telling them that the 'total' benefits package is 5% above the industry average is "bollocks". If however you tell them that if they meet the 3 month delivery limit and they will each get a check for $10,000 then you might see a bit more interest. Or if you hire them at a rate that is 25% above their next best offer, and do salary increases every year with a above 10% match from any counter offer they receive then you might see a bit more interest as well.
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Kent Sharkey wrote:
Really?
I worked for a company where I typically put in slightly more than 60 hours a week and others put in many more than that. They paid hourly. And at least the people I knew were actually producing at that rate. Conversely I worked at a company at salary that for years claimed that the 'next' release would be easy in terms of scheduling. Never happened. So I started boosting my estimates significantly and started working far less hours. Only way that I saw to demonstrate that I was meeting goals and yet still working in a reasonable way.
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I suppose, chaining them to their desks didn't work out as expected... :)
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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80 hour work week is possible, when you consider the occasional 34 hour workday. (Been there, done that.) I had a contract supplying data center operations management when a critical disk drive failed right before the month end closing reports. Eleven hours service time (two failures [missing set screw]), seven hours recovery, sixteen hours processing time with two of three operators on leave. (Yours truly filling in.)
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Well if you add the half an hour for lunch and an extra half hour on Sunday, that calculation sort of works.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
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Reminded me of this scene from Pirates of Silicon Valley. Jobs basically describes how he created a cult that would think 60-80 hours was showing a lack of loyalty. "90 hours a week and loving it... some of them work more than 90 hours a week..." Of course, to heck with that: I hope dude's company gets some sense or bankrupts. Nick P
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I love the opening of the second answer: S
Quote:
erious answer: 80 hours? Seriously? Basically, that's 12 hours per day for 7 days.
Seriously? 7 x 12 = 80? The poster has evidently been working 80+ hours a week and their brain is tired! (or is that Tyred in the US of A?)
PooperPig - Coming Soon
I think you missed the word "basically" somewhere. 4 hours away from 80 (5%) is in my personal realm of "basically." What's yours?
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I think you missed the word "basically" somewhere. 4 hours away from 80 (5%) is in my personal realm of "basically." What's yours?